


Clark Kent, of Krypton

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Portfolio [11]
Category: Justice League (2017), Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Bang Challenge, Clark centric, Clark grows up on Krypton, Identity Porn, Krypton, M/M, Slow Build, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-15 14:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 98,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19618231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: Batman crashes on Krypton a few days before the Turn of the Year celebrations, and Kal-El's life takes a sharp turn to the left, on a path that will, ultimately, lead him to becoming Clark Kent.





	1. Kal-El

**Author's Note:**

> Seven months of work and nearly a hundred thousand words! How's that for a first foray in a fandom, uh? I'm actually pretty proud of myself on that one, and I hope you all will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! But before we start, there's a number of people I need to thank:
> 
> [susiecarter](https://susiecarter.tumblr.com) for getting me into this pairing (seriously, go read her stories!), cheerleading me through the writing process, and then betaing the whole monster in absolute record time!
> 
> [stuvyx](http://stuvyx.tumblr.com) for the AMAZING comic pages which you can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798057) and [here](https://stuvyx.tumblr.com/post/186279957309/inspired-by-clark-kent-of) and then shower her with praise for her work! :D
> 
> The Mods squad of the [Superbat Big Bang](https://superbatbigbang.tumblr.com), whose organization was absolutely A+ throughout this thing and who answered all my questions very kindly.
> 
> The [OfficialMovieSoundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa777RzA_yRbVJwUJWG3cZw) channel on YouTube, for compiling the complete _Wonder Woman_ score: I listened to this more than any other music while writing CKoK.
> 
> The jewish nerds of tumblr, who’ve been (and still are) spreading words about Superman’s origins and the character’s original meanings and principles, which in turn had a rather large influence on Clark’s personality in this fic. I hope the bits with Martha will come off as respectful as I tried to make them.
> 
> And lastly, a tiny thanks to DC and Mr. Snyder, for deciding to cast Henry Cavill and his jawline as Clark Kent but also making him just not-how-I-wanted enough (and in the right way) to spark me into telling this story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which friends can come from the most unexpected places.

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Lord Bel-Lor exclaims in lilting Council, with a hiccup of delighted surprise. “I would have expected the whole of El to know of this by now.”

Kal-El, strategically stationed close to one of the potted plants meant to shelter the refreshments table from the dancing area, presses his lips together while the young Zod dignitary tries very hard not to sound too eager about incoming gossip. Kal swallows around a lump in his throat, but remains silent. His aunt and uncle’s Turn of the Year ball is one of the most important events of the year, and it wouldn’t do for him to cause a fuss.

He stands in place, fingers tightening around his drink, and darts a quick look around. Lady Ona-Set has found her customary seat a few feet to his right, advanced age and a rather poor sense of rhythm having long ago banded together to keep her from the dance floor. Further to the left, close to one of five internal balconies, Lady Ra-Ny and her spouse have gathered a small but agitated-looking group of Worker dignitaries from Lot and Zod’s delegations. They seem to be engaged in a rather heated debate, hushed as it is. But the rest of the guests have, for the most part, elected to dance or make good use of the balconies allowing them to gaze over the minuscule shapes of their lavish homes, several thousand feet below.

There was a time when El’s elite lived closer to their rulers. A long time ago, the Citadel of El was filled with habitations floor to mountain-high ceiling: the royal family lived in the last few city-wide floors, the lords and ladies shared the following quarter of the space, and the common people divided themselves between the Citadel grounds and the Outside. Then the Lords and Ladies of the Principality rebelled against King Hyr-El, who resolved the situation with a bloodbath first, and the destruction of a solid third of the Citadel’s inner buildings second.

Ever since then, the Stateroom of Peace has floated, alone, in the vast emptiness left by the old families’ houses; the new Citadel Lords and Ladies made new homes on the Citadel Grounds, and pushed former merchants to become Mountain Lords and Ladies in city-domes of their own. The Stateroom—which, as its name implies, is used for every Guild Council meeting and many other official occasions—also serves as a ballroom for religious occasions such as the Turn of the Year, during which all of Krypton celebrates yet another cycle of close collaboration between Rao, the Helping God, and his brother-husband Vohc, the Builder. These are, at least, the Stateroom’s official uses.

There is, however, a third—and chiefly preferred—activity that takes place here: gossiping. Kal has been privy to much of it throughout his near-thirty years of life, and he is largely unsurprised to find his family once again at the center of attention as Citadel Lord Bel-Lor proceeds to share the latest news of the Citadel Princes and Princesses of El.

It goes like this: two days before this very ball, a mysterious spacecraft crashed on Lady Mon-Ka’s property. The precise patch of land in question, bordering the Citadel, had been deemed unfit for cultivation and left in disuse for quite some time, rarely visited and even more rarely monitored. Perhaps that was why no one raised the alarm—or perhaps, as Lady Kam-Leang remarks, Lady Mon-Ka was simply suffering from the effects of the energy depletion afflicting all of Krypton, and could not afford to keep her sophisticated surveillance system in a functioning state. Whatever the reason, no one at the time thought to investigate the craft.

“No one, that is, but the Shadow of El,” Lord Bel-Lor says with a storyteller’s instinct for dramatics.

Kal drains his flute of liquor in one go while the Zod dignitary dutifully asks about the Shadow of El. Lord Bel-Lor declines to delve into much detail, aware as he is that extensive knowledge of the Shadow won’t garner him any favor at court, but there is more than enough there to earn several exclamations of surprise and one shocked ‘No!’. The Shadow of El, he explains, is a disturbance to the peace, a master criminal helping other criminals escape well-earned justice...but alas, the people of the Citadel have taken a shine to them.

“Something to do with old legends,” Lady Lin-Na says in a disdainful tone. “You must have heard of the Dark Sun.”

“Only in passing,” the Zodian admits. “I hear they are causing some trouble.”

“Inconsequential,” Lady Lin-Na dismisses, several other voices humming in approval, including her husband's. “But they did find their name in one of our old legends, in which Rao must go through a magical sleep, and a darker version of him—Rao’s dream self, if you will—takes it upon themselves to help protect the world during the sun’s long absence... Because the Gods may not interfere in the affairs of mortals in person, the Dark Sun casts a Shadow of themselves on Krypton, so that it may fight the monsters trying to take over the world.”

Several voices try to be the first to express their disapproval and disdain towards the very idea, Council and Ellon overlapping in the conversation until Lord Bel-Lor clicks his tongue to reestablish silence. Kal-El picks up another drink—his third this evening—and ignores Lady Ona-Set’s judgmental glare as he sips at it, knuckles white around the stem.

There is no true way to tell what exactly transpired in that disused field. What _is_ known, however, is that by the time Lady Mon-Ka was made aware of the smoking ruins on her property, the Shadow of El had scooped the spacecraft’s pilot out of the wreckage and taken them to the Citadel. They appeared on the main external balcony with an alien in their arms and the light of the sun behind them, striking Lara Lor-Van and Jor-El almost dumb with awe. And the Shadow of El commanded them to take care of the alien, for the spacecraft had reached Krypton on the day of Vohc’s comet, and its pilot might therefore be an envoy of the God.

Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, known throughout El for their piety, took the alien in. By the time Kal-El emerged from his labs six or seven hours after dawn, groggy and sporting wrinkle marks from his pillow all over his face, the entire household was scrambling to accommodate both this badly-injured and unexpected new responsibility of theirs, and the ire of Zor-El, Citadel King of El and rather exasperated older brother, who had no patience for his younger sibling and sister-in-law’s latest religious fancy.

“I fail to understand,” the Zodri dignitary says in hushed tones while Kal braces himself for the inevitable turn of the conversation from this point on, “why Citadel royals would comply with a criminal’s instructions.”

“I forget sometimes,” Lord Dar Ran-No says with a smile painfully obvious in his tone, “how little of our internal politics is understood outside of El.”

Kal listens to the giggles that follow the word ‘politics’ and resists the urge to mime gagging into his glass. It isn’t so much Lady Ona-Set he worries about—she has little affection for Bel-Lor, or any of the Citadel Lords for that matter—but rather the foreign delegations taking part in the celebrations. What the Zodri envoy is about to discover will make its way into every available ear before the end of the night; no two ways about that. Kal can almost hear General Dru-Zod teasing Zor-El about it already. At the very least, however, he does have the power to avoid bringing even more attention to himself with an untimely departure. With a deep breath, Kal forces himself not to empty his Ulian liquor in one go, choosing instead to soothe the tense ache in his neck with a slow overview of the room.

The dancing is slow tonight, even by court standards, and most of the guests are still busy digesting the vast array of refined dishes they spent the better part of three hours sampling over the luxurious buffet. The light, as red as El’s famed sunsets, sparkles over jewelry and shining fabric. Lady Ra-Ny, her spouse and their group have retreated to one of the internal balconies, Warrior-looking men scattered in close proximity while Zor-El stands in the middle of the group. All over the dance floor, people laugh, voices loud and smiles sharp with the delight of mostly harmless gossip.

Behind Kal, the chuckles have faded, and as Dar Ran-No feigns reluctance to share his knowledge, Kal prays in vain for the ground to open up and swallow him.

“Something you must know,” the Citadel Lord says in a delighted tone that makes Kal slouch even further than he usually does, “is that Their Majesties have never been the sort to resist...scientific curiosity.”

More giggles, and Kal overhears two voices sharing the title of a certain book in hushed Ellon.

“A very specific sort of scientific curiosity,” Lord Bel-Lor chimes in, improper meaning exactly as clear now as it always is.

More laughter. Kal doesn’t quite screw his eyes shut, but he does look down at the ground, feeling redder than the sun. In his armpit and in his ears, blood pulses with the sharp painfulness of shame, and he forces himself to relax his grip on his flute of liquor or risk breaking it. It takes everything he has to use a polite tone to send away the servant offering him a drink, instead of begging them to leave him alone.

“I must admit,” the Zodri dignitary says with what sounds like genuine curiosity, “I am quite incapable of guessing what you are driving at.”

“Do you truly not know?”

“To be fair, Lord Bel-Lor,” Lady Kam-Leang says in an indulgent tone, “the young man doesn’t look much older than the Prince himself.”

“Prince Kal-El? What does he have to do with his parents’ scientific endeavors?”

At least two people snort at that, loud and undignified, and Kal’s face heats up even further, stomach sinking fast and low in his belly. Dar Ran-No’s voice sounds tight when he explains, in the usual embarrassing amount of detail, what exactly Kal has to do with his parents’ scientific endeavors.

“That is revolting!” the Zodri dignitary exclaims, in a strained hiss that sends cold shivers down Kal’s spine. “Who would even conceive of something so—so—”

“I believe it has been called primitive.”

Kal somehow restrains himself from muttering unflattering things into his drink, but only just. To his left, Lady Ona-Set sits with her eyes closed, head tilted toward Kal, mouth hanging slightly open; but the lady shows no sign of drooling. Old she may be, but the gene for degenerative hearing has been eliminated from the collective gene pool for almost seven centuries, and she has always had a reputation for gossiping. No need to encourage that particular trait with entertaining dramatics on his part, especially when she can’t possibly be having any trouble hearing when Dan Ran-No continues:

“Primitive or no, it was in direct keeping with their previous endeavors...and neither of Their Majesties has ever made a secret of it. When the—what was the word they used for it? I forget.”

“The birthing,” Kam-Leang supplies, voice curling with a sort of fascinated distaste around the archaic word. “That was what they called it.”

“Right,” Bel-Lor acquiesces with a scoff, “the birthing. Both Prince Jor-El and Princess Lara Lor-Van had been religious before, you must understand, but after the—uh—the birthing, they became quite convinced the child was a miracle of the Gods. A gift from Rao himself.”

“Surely they didn’t—”

“Oh, yes, they did,” Bel-Lor all but squeaks; Lady Kam-Leang and her husband both hush him.

Kal winces at the sound, fully aware that this particular piece of gossip has lost none of its power in the twenty-nine years since his birth. He doesn’t even need to put any particular effort into picturing the looks on the Ellon nobles’ faces: wide eyes and delighted grins, vaguely hidden behind fluttering fans and flutes of sparkling Nyen wine. They have sported it at regular intervals throughout Kal’s life, and he can only assume the Zodri envoy likewise looks very much the same as every other dignitary ever has: as enraptured as his predecessors were by the scandalous yet fascinating story of the last natural birth of Krypton. There is, however, more to this story, and this time Kal does down what is left of his liquor before they speak again, wishing for all the world he’d thought to grab some of the fermented torquats Dru-Zod brought along as a gift. At least he would have had something good to chew on while waiting out the night’s agony.

“They tried to have the child blessed by the priests of Rao—”

“They were, of course, refused,” Lady Kam-Leang states with piercing finality. “The official reason was that to give the child such a name was an affront to the Gods no priest could ever be tempted to forgive—”

“Truly?” the dignitary asks, genuinely puzzled. “I fail to see the problem with it.”

“Because you are unfamiliar with Ellon,” Dar Ran-No says, “or you would know ‘Kal-El’ is the light of the sun.”

“Although,” Lady Kam-Leang remarks, “things would perhaps not have been so bad if they hadn’t gone further still. For years afterwards, Their Majesties and their followers—yes, they do still have a handful of them—insisted on calling their offspring a miracle. A herald of great things to come.”

Kal is...acutely familiar with that line. It is old habit, by now, to swallow the bitter shame that comes with it.

“I heard rumors,” Lord Bel-Lor continues, “that Their Majesties wished to attempt birthing a second child, but it seems the Gods intended for the prince to be a one-time phenomenon.”

“Some people in the Guild of Believers have whispered that this must be a divine punishment for the Els’ arrogance. I do not know that I agree,” Dar Ran-No says in a slightly pinched tone, “but the lack of a second ‘miracle’ did certainly temper Jor-El’s dreams of having a messiah for a son.”

“But of course,” Bel-Lor adds, picking up where his fellow Citadel Lord left off, “if the _other_ rumors are true, and Their Majesties are being plagued with a much more _biological_ problem….”

At least one person chokes on a drink. Another one, perhaps two, coughs. Kal assumes the high-pitched, quickly-aborted laughter belongs to the Zodri dignitary, although he wouldn’t be able to swear to it. Face burning even as the rest of him turns to ice, he makes a tremendous effort to keep his gaze on the ground and take deep breaths until the corners of his eyes stop stinging. Inside his chest, his heart throws itself against his ribs like a wild animal trying to escape a cage, and Kal has to blink several times before he can bring the patterns on the floor back into focus.

The balconies are overcrowded, the object of too many mocking eyes and surrounded by the imposing silhouettes of Nyen Warriors. But they are the only place where Kal can hope to find a little fresh air—and peace, if he can be allowed to make use of the one occupied by his uncle and his friends, rather than any of the other four—until he has remained here for the full four hours required of him, and is allowed to retreat to the safety of his labs.

He braces himself and, carefully avoiding Lady Ona-Set’s suddenly alert gaze, begins to make his way around the ballroom.

“Good morning, Kal-El,” Krypto says when Kal emerges from his labs, with no sleep under his belt and Kryo on his heels. “Their Majesties wished me to remind you of the king’s visit tonight.”

Kal nods, always more tongue-tied than he’d like in presence of his mother’s hunit. Krypto has always been pleasant to him, programming far too stringent to allow even for the impression of disrespect in its tone; but it is an extension of Lara Lor-Van, and that is enough to keep Kal on his toes.

“I remember,” he tells the hunit, “thank you. In fact, I was on my way to wash up and rest. I should like to be fit for polite company tonight.”

“Good,” Krypto says the same way it always has, the one that makes Kal feel like he’s still a little boy. “Lady Lara also wishes you to know the doctors have officially released our guest from bed rest.”

“Oh,” Kal says, heart rate picking up. “I suppose that is good news.”

It will mean one more person to keep in mind, one more presence to navigate around in the palace, and Kal’s head aches just thinking of it—but it is still good that the alien didn’t die. They cannot, after all, be held responsible for Kal’s issues.

“Quite,” Krypto replies in its usual toneless voice. “Their Majesties ask that you remember the name of House El must not be tarnished. Dinner should be served at the customary hour.”

Stomach sinking to somewhere in the vicinity of his knees, Kal nods around the lump in his throat, head lowering almost of its own volition. He stands still as Krypto, ever unaffected by displays of emotion, extends him bland wishes for satisfactory repose and floats away towards the main rooms of his family’s apartments. The Lesser House of El may have lost much of the respect they once enjoyed, after Kal’s birth, but their living quarters do still occupy a solid third of the Citadel’s upper dome. Even living here his whole life, Kal has gone numerous stretches of several days—once as much as two weeks—without encountering his parents. The sight of Krypto leaving him to go and report their conversation to his mother is as familiar an image as Kal has ever known.

He stands alone in the corridor for a moment, breathing in and out at consciously regular intervals while Kryo asks if he’d like a massage to be added to his personal agenda for the night. He nods, of course: a little help relaxing can’t hurt, after all, and he is going to need every ounce of confidence he can get today. That, and his sore arms will definitely thank him.

“Your heart rate is elevated,” Kryo says after a short silence.

“I know,” Kal says, heart picking up its speed again as he tenses in anticipation of Kryo’s predictable remark:

“I am compelled to let you know your current readings are quite far above average.”

“I know,” Kal says again, and breathes in deep to avoid snapping at it.

It isn’t the hunit’s fault, after all, that these reminders were programmed into it. Some things, Kal has changed over the years; but he never did figure out how to make the hunit less judgmental without messing up its programming beyond repair, and so the tone has stayed. It's proven useful in the long run, in that Kryo's unaltered demeanor hides all the things that aren’t the way Kal’s parents wanted them to be, but it doesn’t mean the hunit is never annoying. Kal has practice with this, though, and so it is simple—if not effortless—to keep his tone in check when he says:

“Don’t worry, Kryo, I’ll be fine tonight.”

“You are a prince of El,” Kryo says, automatically beginning one of the most irritating conversational routines in his repertoire. “You are—”

“Bound to interact with strangers from time to time,” Kal cuts in, “yes, I realize.”

“Irrational behaviors due to feelings of inadequacy—”

“Kryo. You are well aware I dislike it when you talk about me like this.”

Kryo goes quiet, but doesn’t apologize. Contrition is not a state hunit were ever designed to emulate. They are far too matter-of-fact for that. Kal, for his part, breathes in deep again, and forces his shoulders to unwind as he finally walks away from the access stairs to his labs and strides toward his rooms. He has Kryo perform a general scan to locate the rest in the household—only in the part of the Citadel assigned to Kal’s parents, however—and is all but scolded for it. The other hunits of the palace are complaining, it seems, about the frequency of pings of that nature they tend to receive.

“It is never a good thing to render house hunits dissatisfied.”

Hunits are devoid of emotion, incapable of satisfaction or dissatisfaction by design. What Kryo is truly saying is that Kal’s use of household scans is above average and will therefore be reported; but the emotional vocabulary makes the whole thing sound just a tad less pathetic, and so Kal sighs and nods rather than correct the hunit. Besides, his higher reasoning functions are begging further out of this conversation with every step he takes toward his bed. No point in trying to argue in these conditions. He is in the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn, his entire being crying out for sleep, when the black-and-gray silhouette of his parents’ guest stops him.

The alien, standing by the guests’ library, is tall by Ellon standards, though the people of Zod might find them of average size. Their anatomical model is familiar enough to be reassuring: four limbs with hands and feet, shoulders on the broader side but still within the limits of what Kal would call normal. The muscles seem too well-defined to be natural, although Kryo maintains that all staff accounts state the alien looks perfectly Ellon-like under their clothes. Kal has never seen them out of their clothes, though, and so the impressive shape of the alien’s body retains all its power as far as he is concerned.

The main difference between him and the alien lies in the head. Where Kal’s is somewhat round at the top—though perhaps a little squarer than average around the jaw—with the ordinary short round ears of Kryptonians, the alien’s has two protruding appendages at the top, aligned approximately above where ears would be. They jut out of the alien’s cowl in menacing straight lines and narrow to frighteningly sharp-looking points. Kal...believes Kryo when it says the alien doesn’t actually possess ears—or horns—that look like this. The hunit is, after all, unable to lie to him. But that knowledge doesn’t quell the eerie feeling of strangeness that tightens Kal’s chest every time he looks at them.

The alien’s most noticeable feature, however, is not so much their silhouette as their stance. There is no hint of groveling in it, none of the wary tension displayed by visiting envoys from neighboring planets. Not that those envoys cower, exactly, but they are always clearly conscious of the galaxy’s painful history with Krypton, and therefore never fully at ease. _This_ alien—Vohc’s alien, as Kal has heard some call them—carries themselves with the easy authority of a Citadel Lord in the king’s confidence. Back straight, head high; no hint of doubt in their own worth, their own place, their own right to remain.

The sight of it shrivels something already small and wrinkled in Kal’s soul, makes him want to shrink back in the darkness and hide from the alien’s presence...for, sent by Vohc or not, this alien certainly does seem capable of things Kal couldn’t even dream of; and the thought of being found wanting compared to someone who, according to the court, does not even have the decency to be from the known universe, let alone Krypton, is… distressing.

It is, therefore, unfortunate that acting on that self-effacing impulse would bring more shame to Kal’s house than his continued failure to prove himself worthy of attention.

“Good evening,” Kal manages after a deep, steadying breath, pulse hammering away so hard he can feel it in his clasped palms. “May I help you?”

In front of him, the alien’s head tilts to the right in what must be—might be; hopefully is—a sign of incomprehension, and Kal almost gives into the impulse to slap himself in the forehead. The alien is not from any recognizable planet, let alone a known species. They did not respond to any of the local languages stored in the House’s courtesy translators, never mind Council or Ellon. Why, then, Kal would be silly enough to assume they would understand is certainly a mystery for the ages. Not the first of its kind, it is true, but painful nonetheless.

Swallowing a sigh, Kal draws on his vague memories of learning Council as a child and starts again:

“I am Kal-El,” he says in Ellon.

He waits for a few seconds, taps his fingers to the middle of his forehead, and repeats: “Kal-El.”

“I am Batman,” the alien says.

The words are clearly unpracticed on their tongue, the gesture all wrong. No one in El would tap their chest to indicate personhood, after all. Still, these things can be forgiven; it is the alien’s grammar that poses a significant problem. None of the politeness markers fit their position: a nobody—for all anyone knows, at any rate—addressing...well, essentially another nobody, but of royal blood. Many at court would have had Batman’s hide for that sort of an affront, accidental though it may be.

Batman is lucky, though: Kal has dealt with much worse than people addressing him as if he were a lower-ranked but still respected guest. It is easy, then, to quell the sliver of pleased surprise—and the subsequent shame at how readily swayed Kal is—rising in his chest; to muster a stiff smile and a nod and, when Batman does not seem willing to communicate any further, flee toward his quarters.

It takes Kal a long while before he can fall into a nap, and then it takes an even longer time for him to wake up properly once the evening comes. It isn’t that El’s simple tunics of straight lines and slashed sleeves take all that long to put on, really. It’s just...well, frankly, it’s just that Kal is somewhat clumsier than average. He tends to bang into furniture and trip on his own feet more than other people do, and existing in a near-constant state of sleep-deprived grogginess does not help. Science is worth it, he knows. It doesn’t make it any less awkward to step into the Fire dining room almost three minutes late and watch six pairs of eyes turn to him.

Kal’s uncle, King Zor-El, is a proud man, taller and bulkier even than his brother Jor—a rare build, for Thinkers. He sits in state at the head of the table with an ease Kal knows he would never be able to replicate, gaze a strange mixture of fondness and disappointment. Force of habit, perhaps. Either way, Zor-El does not say anything about Kal’s tardiness. A simple raise of his eyebrow; the pinched look on Kal’s parents’ faces, the amused gaze that passes between Sol Ka-Zod—Kal’s aunt—and her stepdaughter...all of these are familiar enough to be set aside. Not easily, not quite. But they are set aside, and that means Kal is free to look around the rest of the room, and marvel.

The Fire dining room is one of the smaller, cozier rooms of similar function in the Lesser House of El’s apartments. At the back, a fire burns year-round, for the rooms closest to the center of the dome tend to be colder, and fire has always been Rao’s way of welcoming guests. In front of the fire sits the table, around which Kal’s family has arranged itself amidst the flowing lines of curved columns, floral motifs carved into the very bones of the building.

There, to the right of Kal’s usual chair, sits Batman. Their back is still as impeccably straight as it was this morning, their shoulders just as steady, their jaw just as strong. This time, however, the slant of their lips, below their cowl, curls into something...well. Perhaps not quite a smile. Not a smirk, either. But there is the seed of an expression there, Kal is fairly sure, that could become either of those things; and it is such a novelty compared to the usual reactions he garners that as he seats himself Kal can’t help but blush, looking down at his hands until he feels in control of himself again.

The meal is well underway by the time Kal comes back to himself, silten salads half-eaten and roasted keltar being rolled into the room. To Kal’s right, Batman has taken their gloves off to eat, and their hands look very much like Kal’s hands—a little bigger, maybe, in keeping with their owner’s size, but nothing strange. Nothing that would be out of proportion for a Kryptonian, at the very least. They catch the eye somehow, at least as far as Kal is concerned. Batman’s silhouette was so imposing this morning, so surprisingly regal for someone people have barely hesitated to classify as a barbarian; it is hard not to be surprised when it turns out they eat like a regular person.

It wouldn’t do to stare, however, and striking up a conversation right now would mean talking over the main guests, an ill-advised course of action.

“I don’t think the Melokariel Proposition will ever be accepted,” Kal’s father is saying when Kal finally dares to raise his eyes away from his plate. “Nor do I think it should.”

Kal darts a glance over the table, unsurprised to find his cousin raising her eyebrows quite high into her glass of Ulian liquor. The reaction is, Kal supposes, understandable. As the first in line to take over the throne of El, Kara has been invited to every single one of her father and uncle’s twice-weekly dinners since the tender age of twelve, and is therefore even more familiar with Jor-El’s way of gearing up for a fight. Or, well. A debate, as he calls it.

Notorious for his incompetence and disinterest in politics, Kal returns Kara’s gesture nonetheless. He might not know the ins and outs of this Proposition as well as she does, but he does know his parents, and the thought of another family argument beginning is about as annoying as it is stressful by now. At least he knows he won’t be asked to participate. Kal’s horrendous lack of social acuity, cultural refinement, or specialization has been exposed, discussed, debated, and condemned more than enough for a lifetime; he isn’t keen on sparking that particular conversation again by asking about the Proposition or, Rao forbid, trying to change the topic. He will get through this in silence, like he always has, and count himself lucky for it.

“Ever the retrograde, brother,” Zor-El says while a servant takes his empty plate and replaces it with the largest keltar of the lot. “If I were to listen to you, we would be working our way back to the days of primitive savagery.”

There is no need to look up to know Zor-El has nodded in Kal’s direction, the circumstances of his birth ever a sore point for the family. He dares a glance to the right instead, and blinks when he finds Batman looking down at the table coil they were handed along with their meat. There is nothing strange about the tool that Kal can see, though accidents do happen, so he turns back to the left when his father, having most likely run through his usual defenses of Kal’s conception—helped along by his wife, of course—snaps:

“In any case, the fact that Krypton does not possess the necessary resources to—”

“We have talked about this before, Jor,” Zor says in a warning tone. “Krypton will not debase itself by going around begging colonies for their scraps.”

“Ex colonies,” Kara points out, mild but clear. “The Green Lanterns saw to that.”

Queen Sol Ka-Zod elbows her stepdaughter in the side, but Kal has never seen his cousin heed that particular warning before. His aunt cannot be faulted for the gesture, as it is unseemly for an heir to the throne to dissociate herself from the ruling monarch so openly—even if only at the family table; but then again the only thing worse than that would be for Kara to have no opinion at all. As it is, the jab passes, and the conversation returns to its topic of choice for the past nine months or so: the Melokariel Proposition.

Kal, knowing no one will think to ask for his opinion on the topic, takes a look to his right again, and freezes. Batman, despite maintaining as dignified a posture as can be, is making an unimaginable mess of their food. Bits of it have strayed from their plate; the rest stains both their hands and their forks...and that is when Kal realizes this should have been an entirely predictable outcome. What were the chances, after all, that Batman learned to use proper cutlery on whatever backwater planet they came from? The cost of forgetting your manners—and therefore, your place—is high on Krypton, however, and Kal is too well-aware of this to sit there and do nothing. He reaches over, ready to take action, when Zor raises his voice:

“Mining the core is the only way to survive,” he says in a tone full of rebuke, catching Batman’s attention without effort.

“So say Peacekeepers,” Jor retorts—too loud, too fast. “They have always been quick to demand and slow to think, but—”

“Jor!” Kal’s mother exclaims, half reproof and half horror, at the same time as Zor warns:

“It would do you good to remember which Guild your queen came from, brother.”

Despite the fire, the atmosphere of the room grows chilly, and Kal has to force his fingers to relax as he closes them around his fork and table coil. He tilts his head to the side when the alien looks at him, left hand extended palm up toward Batman, coil hanging between his thumb and forefinger, and asks, “May I help you?”

Batman looks at Kal for a few moments—or at least, they keep still, with their optical lenses pointed in the appropriate direction—before they nod. Kal nods in return and, in a practiced gesture, lifts the keltar’s nearest limb with his own fork, loops the coil around it, and slices it off the animal’s body by spreading his fingers. Batman makes no sound, and does not give any indication that they watched Kal's actions particularly closely, but when Kal outfits them with a coil of their own, Batman imitates the gesture almost perfectly, and then repeats it with diligence. There is something surprisingly circumspect in the way they move, as if trying to master the gesture in as little time as possible. It seems strange, to Kal, who tends to observe things for far too long before he makes a move, but it works in Batman’s favor, and they are eating cleanly in no time. Just in time, in fact, to hear Kal’s father snap:

“If Tsiahm-Lo does vote in favor of the Proposition, he will truly lose the right to call himself the Wise King of anything, let alone Laborers!”

“Jor-El!” Sol exclaims, obviously shocked.

Even Kal’s mother doesn’t dare speak in support of her husband after that sort of claim, and it is easy for Kal to feel the assembly tense—even down to Batman—as Zor leans forward and says in a low voice:

“I would guard my words if I were you, Jor. There are those who would consider such a statement dangerously close to treason.”

The table is grimly silent for a moment, fragile balance poised on the edge of a knife, as Kal watches his father reconsider his words, swallow, and say:

“Forgive me, everyone. I don’t know what came over me. Obviously, I misspoke.”

On the opposite side of the table Lara, Sol and Kara all look distinctly relieved, though Kal can’t quite manage to relax his shoulders. He hunches in on himself a little closer instead, ignoring the way Batman’s attention seems to have moved away from their food and toward the conversation on the more interesting side of the table.

Kara is the first to speak again.

“If nothing else,” she says in a firm tone, “I don’t believe anyone should consider the Proposition without also considering its alternative.”

The rest of the table mumbles their assent, until Sol and Lara join in and, soon enough, the debate veers away from the Melokariel Proposition itself and onto the merits of Krypton’s old colonial programs. Kal, who has little interest in joining that discussion either, presses his lips together and turns back to his food for the rest of the meal. Batman requires almost no further help, except when dessert comes and they seem more than a little perplexed by the singing flowers set atop the cakes.

“You can eat them,” Kal says when Batman clears their throat and tilts their head toward their plate.

“You?” Batman repeats, head tilted, while gesturing with their hand like they’re bringing something to their mouth.

It isn’t the gesture Kal would use to signify eating, but context makes it easy to interpret. Kal repeats the verb for Batman’s benefit, rectifiescorrections their pronunciation to something more understandable than their first attempt, and starts thinking.

There is no telling when—or if—Batman will leave Krypton. The Shadow of El passed along no word of anyone else in the alien’s spacecraft, and no one has reached out to El looking for a lost companion since the day before yesterday. There is a possibility—how much of one is impossible to tell, but the chance is real nonetheless—that no one is coming to rescue them. If so, they will need to integrate. They cannot possibly be expected to remain incapable of communication forever, and the odds of anyone volunteering to take them to a neighboring planet are minimal at best. As for waiting for his parents to think of Batman’s well-being...Kal would frankly rather not. And yet Batman will need to adapt and find a place in Ellon society.

They will need to speak, Kal realizes. To learn the things they don’t know, to figure out the rules and customs of this place—for otherwise they leave themselves open to ridicule, contempt, or worse. As a man with experience dealing with two of these things, Kal finds himself loath to leave Batman to deal with them alone. Not when he knows he can, perhaps, do something about it.

Kal is no expert linguist. In point of fact, he isn’t even a teacher. He is willing to help, though, and willing to spend some time trying to figure out the best way to help Batman around...which, he guesses, makes him the only choice available. It might be a bad idea. He has other things to do, after all. Responsibilities he cannot shirk. He is a Citadel Prince of El, though, and those responsibilities do extend to taking care of guests.

He might not be the best choice for this, but if no one else will make time for the task, he will.

Raising his head at breakfast the next morning only to find Batman standing in front of him with the same serious expression they have always displayed is a surprise for Kal. He would say that he hadn’t expected the alien to seek him out quite that fast, but the truth is he hadn’t expected Batman to seek him out at all. Besides, it is long past breakfast time. Kal is still there, it is true, but that is only because he tends to work all night and barely emerges from his labs in time to ingest something before he collapses on his bed and sleeps most of the day away. Batman can’t possibly have missed that fact. Can they?

Whatever the reason, the alien does not seem ready to stop looking at Kal in a way that makes him feel as though his use of his table coil is being assessed and found wanting. This is not, it is true, an uncommon sentiment for Kal. Most of his life has been spent in self-conscious discomfort. But the familiarity of the sensation does nothing to prevent a blush from rising into Kal’s ears until he feels like they are about to catch on fire.

“Excuse me,” he tells the alien in an attempt to relieve some of the tension, “may I help you?”

Batman remains stock still for a moment. Nothing in their expression shifts exactly, except perhaps for a certain sense of...looking for something. ‘Hesitation’ seems like too strong a sentiment, somehow, though it comes closest to what Kal perceives. Deliberation, then. Batman indulges in a few more seconds of it before they nod and take a seat in front of Kal. Behind him, Kal feels Kryo hover closer, perhaps out of a sense of misplaced protection, but the hunit does not do anything else.

Meanwhile Batman has extended a hand and is pointing at Kal’s table coil, saying something in what Kal assumes is their birth language. He blinks, still a little too groggy to process this in a timely manner, and he is fairly sure he sees Batman’s lips tighten—a sure sign of exasperation on a Kryptonian—before they point at Kal:

“I am Kal-El,” they say. Then, pointing at themselves: “I am Batman.”

They point at the coil again then, and Kal blushes harder when he realizes the question was actually quite simple, and he should have understood it right away. He pushes past it, however, and answers with flaming cheeks:

“This is a table coil.”

“This is a table coil,” Batman repeats, pronunciation quite close to Kal’s.

“Table coil,” Kal repeats nonetheless, just to make sure the alien will understand that only these two words designate the object they are asking about.

That, and to make sure Batman won’t mispronounce it and accidentally refer to a very intimate part of the anatomy.

Batman, as has been the case so far, proves themselves a diligent learner, and manages a perfect rendition on the second try. Kal beams. He doesn’t stop to think, then, that Batman may not have been asking for a full vocabulary lesson when he points at his fork and says:

“This is _a fork_.”

“This is a fork,” Batman repeats, eyes fixed down on the table.

Kal nods, grin widening despite himself, a thin bubble of pride growing in his chest.

“This is _a glass_.”

“This is a glass.”

Kal walks Batman through several other eating implements—a plate, a spoon, a napkin—ever more pleased when Batman keeps getting the pronunciation right in two, sometimes three attempts at the most. They name all the items set on the table, eventually, and Kal imagines things will stop there for a moment, but then Batman points at the table itself and says, “This is….” with a tilt of their head.

“This is a table,” Kal informs them. Then, because he can’t think of a better way to explain the question, he seizes his glass again and, with a tilt of his head similar to Batman’s, asks: “What is this?”

Batman nods at that, mouth slanting...well, not into a smile, maybe, but a more relaxed angle, at least. Something that seems to hint Batman has finally found something worth considering in Kal, and, well. It would be a lie to say it does not affect him. There is something—giddy, almost, but also rewarding about this. About knowing he is useful here and that what he is doing right now will be—perhaps ‘appreciated' is the wrong word. Batman would be well within their rights to consider teaching them the language a demonstration of basic courtesy on the part of their hosts. Even so, whatever Batman learns and remembers this morning will be useful to them in the future. The sentiment is exhilarating. It loosens Kal’s shoulders, make him more willing to smile as he tries to mime the concept of a room in order to explain the word ‘parlor’.

By the time they stop, almost an hour later—and then only because Kryo reminds Kal today is the day of his annual health examination—Kal has had time to fill his chest with so much satisfaction at a job well done he feels almost no self-consciousness at the gesticulating he has to engage in to explain that he needs to leave. Batman nods, somewhat less stiff than they usually seem to be, and then says two words—at least it sounds like two distinct words—in their language.

Kal, caught off guard, nods back, close-lipped and tenser than he would like to be, and doesn’t look back as he leaves the room at an appropriately sedate pace, Kryo hovering at his elbow. He is in the process of trying to breathe his heartbeat into something more acceptable when the questions—the sudden uncertainty—become too much to handle, and he asks, “That probably meant thank you, didn’t it? No reason for them to—”

To what, exactly? Mock Kal? Judge him? Insult him? None of these possibilities make any rational sense. Context, and Batman’s attitude, both point towards the alien’s words being some form of thanks but—but what if it wasn’t? Kal is familiar with his mind's tendencies. Its ability to twist even the most innocuous things into catastrophes has been a part of his existence for as long as he remembers, and he knows better than to listen to it without reserve.

But still, a persistent part of him asks, what if he made a fool of himself this morning and did not realize it? What if Batman was only indulging him and could not hold it back any longer? What if they found Kal the dullest, most profoundly boring creature they have met in their entire existence, and are now determined to avoid him at any cost? The chances are slim—very slim, even—but….

“You are panicking again,” Kryo says in its usual dispassionate tone.

Kal does not hush it, but he does think about it. These concerns of his are...irrational, most of the time. He knows this. Not always, though. Kal has made a mess of things without meaning to before, has been found wanting in many and varied respects—numerous times, even—and Batman...well. It did seem, for a moment there, like Batman didn’t completely despise spending an extended period of time in Kal’s company. That is a good sign. But others have pretended as much before, and Kal should have remembered that; should have paid more attention to what he was doing, put more care into remaining—unobtrusive. Yes, that would be the right word. He knows how dull he is after all, should keep it in mind lest he keep making the same mistakes he made today—too solicitous, he’s sure, treating Batman like an imbecile or...or whatever else he did, really. It will come to him, he knows.

“Kal,” Kryo points out again as they round a corridor towards the palace doctors’ offices, “you are panicking again. Calm down.”

Never has that particular command been of any help in the past, but Kal has long since given up on trying to get it out of Kryo’s programming. He bites down on his instinctive rejection of the advice and breathes in deep instead. Then he asks, “Would you calculate the probability of what Batman said meaning ‘thank you’, please?”

“Situational elements suggest an 85% chance that that would be an appropriate translation of their words,” Kryo replies. “The scarcity of available data means linguistic calculations might take as long as four weeks to process. Do you wish me to proceed?”

“No, thank you,” Kal says.

Eighty-five percent, he tells himself even as he knocks on the door to the doctor’s office. That doesn’t sound so bad. Granted, there is still a fifteen percent chance he misread the situation entirely. A fifteen percent chance Batman was seeking him for very different reasons—although he cannot fathom what those reasons might have been—and he only managed to annoy them beyond belief. Fifteen percent chances are more than enough to send his heart racing; more than enough to half convince him he should, perhaps, consider shutting himself off from the world for good, if only it would ensure he never made that sort of mistake again.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” the head physician says when she opens the door.

She gives Kal a familiar once over, takes his expression in—and this time, Kal knows he is not imagining the exasperation. Sighing, he follow her lead and tries to steel himself for the upcoming assessment and the myriad of little embarrassments that come with it.

The examination goes well enough, except for a few awkward bruises and wounds Kal has to admit he got from lugging heavy objects around in his labs—“If you’ll beg my pardon, Your Majesty, I know people lighter than these plants of yours,” the doctor says. Kal gives her an awkward smile and changes the topic; something new to be needlessly embarrassed about. The plants are nothing big, truly, nothing anyone would find really remarkable. Kal is known for being chiefly interested in botany, though, and most people do not associate this with sprained ankles or bruised ribs; so every instance of someone finding out must be followed by an uneasy reminder that Kal does not live a dangerous life at all but is, rather, ridiculously clumsy...and getting clumsier as the years go by.

Still, he does escape the doctor’s office eventually, relief more than palpable in every single one of his veins. Then he gets to his laboratories, settles down behind the floor-to-ceiling, one-way window, and proceeds to lose himself in work.

He is in the middle of a—lengthening—break several hours later, when Kara’s voice rings from the top of the stairs and bounces against the spherical ceiling of the comparatively minuscule room:

“I might wish to update your security protocols,” she says, her footsteps gradually losing themselves in Kal’s small forest of growing plants. “They barely reacted when I approached the door.”

“Of course they did,” Kal says without looking away from his current notes, “they know you. Besides, it wouldn’t do to give anyone the impression I’m trying to hide something in here, would it?”

Kara hums from where, if the rustling is to be trusted, she is poking at Kal’s morose-looking keva vines. Not that he takes poor care of them—he hardly does anything else with his days, after all. But Krypton’s atmosphere has been profoundly changed by the ever-more-intensive mining projects grinding away at its soil, filling the air with more dust than many plants find it possible to survive. Some biomes have been able to adapt on their own in the northern parts of the planet, where mining activity has been subdued by the lack of remaining material worth the effort. But El is one of the least-affected Principalities. The worst of the work is yet to come, here, and while the king—in his wisdom—has remained steadfastly convinced no problem could arise from an intensification of industrial production, Kal has always been more...anxious.

It was easy to combine this with his scientific curiosity and indulge in the sort of pet project none of his family members could truly disapprove of, despite his lack of formal education on the topic. Kara, for her part, has never quite seemed to understand Kal’s enthusiasm for his test subjects, and barely bothers to feign an apology when she accidentally snaps a leaf off a luat bush.

“They seem to be doing better,” she says with a polite smile even as she places the broken leaf back into the luat’s force-field, the atmosphere set to mimic a seventy percent air pollution rate. She wipes her hand clean with a nearby rag before she continues: “Perhaps you are finally succeeding.”

“We did move from a five percent survival rate to ten,” Kal replies without mirth.

“Ah. Well...at least there is progress?”

Kal tilts his head in concession, and then stiffens when Kara finally walks up to his desk and leans over his shoulder. The working lights, brighter than any other in the lab, must obstruct her view: she reaches for Kal’s papers, and although his first instinct is to grab after them, he knows better than to attempt it. Kara has, after all, been training all her life never to take no for an answer. Not at face value, in any case. Kal hesitates. Fidgets. At last, when he is sure Kara must have completed at least her second reading of what notes he has, he can’t help but ignore the skepticism in her expression and ask:

“What do you think?”

Kara’s lips purse into a doubtful expression, and she chews on her tongue for a second. Curbing her answer to sound more diplomatic, then. Perhaps Kal should warn her to get rid of the tell.

“I can’t say that I have much expertise in linguistics,” Kara says at last.

Biting down on a sigh, Kal reaches for his notes again, and meets no resistance from his cousin. He eyes his teaching plan for what must be the hundredth time today, and thinks.

Batman’s species is unknown on Krypton. Taking care of them has worked out all right so far, but nothing says they won’t be confronted with unexpected problems later on. They must be able to satisfy their basic needs on their own, which means they must be able to obtain food, drinks, sleeping accommodations and hygiene products. This implies naming said items, and learning how to ask lower-ranked individuals for services and thank them appropriately afterwards. Other things will come, such as asking for and understanding directions to various places, greeting individuals of various ranks and, of course, learning to make some form of conversation with the royal family without provoking an incident.

Kal is in the process of revising what he should focus on first and which verbal form to prioritize—desperately trying to remember his first lessons in any language in the process—when Kara sighs, sits on his desk next to him and asks:

“How long do you believe this will take?”

“A few months, I suppose?” Kal hazards. “They seem to be a fast learner, and they have more pressing motivation to learn Ellon than I did to learn La’u—”

“I never understood why you even chose to learn La’u when you didn’t have to,” Kara interjects with a wink.

Being ten years Kal’s senior means Kara was well into her La’u lessons by the time Kal started grasping the basics of Council, but he did hear his tutors rejoice about his prowess enough to imagine the sort of pains it must have caused Kara to learn it. Frequency-based languages are a struggle for anyone more used to words, but the fact that La’u uses deeper frequencies for more polite speech can hardly have helped Kara and her light voice. In any case, Kal himself struggled enough with the language that he cannot fully blame his cousin for her surprise.

Still, the specifics of La’u are not the point, and Kal continues:

“Hopefully they at least know what conjugations are, but we cannot be sure, and if they do not, it could add months of teaching in order for them to grasp the basics. And after that—”

“After that?” Kara exclaims, but Kal is surveying his teaching plan again and only half paying attention to his cousin when he says:

“Do not worry, I only intend to teach them Court Member forms, at first. That should serve them well enough until—”

“Kal, I wasn’t—don’t you think you are taking on quite a lot of responsibility with this?”

Something shrivels in Kal’s chest, a hopeful seed squashed to the ground by a distracted boot, and he hunches in on himself before he even realizes it. He does attempt to deflect the question with a shrug, but Kara would not be Kara if she could be satisfied with a non-answer of that sort.

“Kal. You are a Citadel Prince. You are a busy man—”

“I do believe you are confusing our timetables,” Kal mutters, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Even so,” Kara insists, after clearing her throat, “your plants take up quite a lot of time and work, especially the nocturnal ones.”

“I am well aware,” Kal tells the piece of paper he wrote Batman’s lesson plan on, “but even so, I am not half as busy as you are. I think I should be able to handle this.”

With a shake of her head, Kara clicks her tongue and rises from the desk, walking to the disused elevator shaft that crosses Kal’s lab and knocking on it with her knuckles. “You know I believe in this project of yours, Kal. There is a reason I wanted to get involved. I know you will continue to give it your best effort—but I also worry you might be taking on responsibilities that are not yours.”

“Batman is a guest under my family’s roof,” Kal points out, trying to keep his tone mild despite the sudden spike of irritation in his chest. “I do have responsibilities—”

“There are plenty of tutors in our service—”

“I’m quite aware,” Kal replies with more bitterness than he thought he had in store for the memory of his old teachers. “I remember my time with them, and I would rather spare Batman that.”

“I know you did not enjoy your basic studies,” Kara starts, “but perhaps if you hadn’t been so difficult, things wouldn’t have been so hard for you.”

Kal gapes for a moment, breath stolen by the sharp stab of pain in his chest at Kara’s words. She means well, he knows. And perhaps...perhaps, in some ways, she is right. It is possible—not probable, but possible—that Kal caving in to his teachers’ demands to specialize in the learnings of one Guild would have made his youth easier. It isn’t the done thing, after all, to ignore traditional limits the way Kal does. To defy genetic marking and engage in activities best left to those who were engineered for them. Still, what was he supposed to do?

The very source of his fame is that Kal does not have any Guild markers in his genome. That he is, in fact, the only Kryptonian to have lived without them in centuries and, if the way his life has gone so far is to be taken as an example, for centuries to come. Why Vohc allowed him to be created—why Rao did not do him the mercy of never allowing his mother’s pregnancy to come to term at all—is a mystery for the ages. Still, the fact remains that he would never have been accepted in any Guild, no matter how well he studied. Believers, Workers, Thinkers…none of them would have wanted him. Why else would Kal’s teachers have scoffed when he asked if he would ever be allowed to learn any of the Guilds’ languages?

It is most likely that Kara believes what she is saying. She has always been kind to Kal, and treated him as an equal, if something of an incomprehensible one. But the truth is that Kal’s tutors were ever unprepared for him—and he was a son of Krypton. How they would react to an alien, Kal would rather not find out. Not, in any case, if it means taking the risk of making Batman feel the way Kal did during his training.

Taking a deep breath, Kal forces himself to straighten his shoulders as much as he can and, sidestepping the ever-delicate subject of his former tutors’ treatment of him, says, “Perhaps you are right. Even so, I have already invested time and effort in this project. I should very much like to bring it to fruition. I have talked with Batman—”

“Is that his name?”

“It is. Though we cannot know for sure whether they are a he—or if this concept even exists where they come from.”

Kara concedes the point with a nod.

“They seem to be an interesting person,” Kal continues. “I would like to get to know them better, but I cannot do that unless they learn to communicate with us and I spend some time with them. Teaching them Ellon seems like the ideal way to accomplish both of these things.

Silence falls around them, and Kara fixes her gaze on Kal for a long time, a skeptical moue firmly set on her lips.

“Very well,” she says at last, sighing in defeat the way she would never allow herself to if Kal were anyone else. It fills his answering sigh with gratitude. “Although I fail to understand what makes him—them—more interesting than any of the other aliens you have met and failed to befriend before.”

She kisses Kal’s forehead before she goes, not noticing how still he has gone. He has to be still. He would cry if he weren’t, the shame of his own inadequacy catching up with him with the force of a laser blast. He tries to explain it later, only to himself—only in the privacy of his own head—but he can’t quite put it into words without finally breaking down into sobs: the way it felt to have Batman see him as a simple stranger, rather than a well-established failure .

It is, sadly enough, a practiced routine to ignore Kryo’s bland inquiries about his health.

It takes Kal some time, after his and Kara’s non-fight in his lab, to realize she must not have come to see him so they could discuss his newfound interest for the art of teaching. In fact, it takes him a full night of reflection—earning him several bruises and possibly a cracked rib that could otherwise have been easily avoided. Kara is busy all of the next morning, and Kal uses that time to sleep like the dead for a while longer, before he goes to visit her in the upper levels of the royal palace.

“I understand,” she says when Kal is done apologizing, eyes on the floor as if he were still a little boy of ten trying to live up to his adult cousin’s expectations. “I suppose I wasn’t at my best myself.”

Kal nods, struck mute now that he has said his piece, and waits for Kara to set what she was working on aside and add:

“I wanted to ask what you thought of the Turn of the Year Ball. You did not dance much.”

“You know I mislike it,” Kal says with an embarrassed shrug. “It accomplishes nothing save providing the court more fodder for gossip.”

He glances up just in time to catch Kara’s knowing look, and feels himself blush. It shouldn’t be an embarrassment, for her to know what the court has to say about Kal. He has been a source of gossip for longer than he can remember, after all, and she must have been aware of this long before he ever began to suspect there was something wrong with him. Still, discussing a source of humiliation is not the same as being aware of its existence, and for a moment Kal finds himself quite unable to speak.

“I understand,” Kara says with the same soft tone she always uses in these conversations of theirs. “I imagine you wanted some fresh air after that.”

“I tried, but the main balcony was rather occupied,” Kal remarks, forcing himself to take his hands out from behind his back, only to twist them together again at his front. “Lady Ra-Ny was there.”

“Well,” Kara says, her tone as mild as her eyes are sharp, “she does like her space. Did you see who else was there?”

“Lord Ko Li-Van of Ul, Lord Nej Tar-Plak from Po—along with his lady wife—”

“Ce-Qod? I thought she was too sickly to travel.”

Kal gives a nonchalant shrug, dragging his eyes back down to the ground, heart hammering in his chest.

“So did several others in their assembly,” he says. “One must assume she made an effort for the sake of the opportunity to meet your father.”

“Indeed,” Kara replies, thoughtful.

Kal glances up and finds her looking down at her work, though her pen hand is not moving.

“It seems quite a lot of Worker Princes and Princesses were hoping for the honor of meeting our king, this week. One can only wonder why.”

She looks up then, straight into Kal’s eyes, and he shrugs.

“Perhaps they were simply hoping to present him with well-wishing gifts for the Turn of the Year. I did hear some of them trade ideas among themselves. I believe Shadow’s limbs were invoked more than once; or, failing that, some form of garment patterned with Dark Suns.”

“Well, thank you, Kal,” Kara tells him after a long silence, features and shoulders as stiff as stone. “You always do pick up the best gossip.”

Kal, who knows the way his cousin looks when she needs to think on something, nods, and makes his way back to his family’s level of the palace.

Once he is back in his family’s dwellings, Kal decides it would be best not to put off his teaching project. The prospect of approaching Batman might be mildly terrifying—though the memory of their willingness to tolerate Kal helps—but it is a necessary step for anything to happen. Besides, teaching or no teaching, it would not do to leave Batman to their own devices like an inconvenient visitor one tries to get rid of, having been followed home.

He finds Batman, after some searching, in one of the smaller libraries of the palace, not too far from the guests’ quarters. Neither the apartments nor the library have seen much use in many years, and the silence around them is enough to set Kal’s nerves on alert, but Batman looks unbothered by it. They've taken a seat by one of the curved windows, relaxed pose incongruous in contrast to the stiffness of their clothes—perhaps Kal should see about having something else made for them—with a book on their lap and something close to a scowl on their mouth.

Kal steps closer, and recognizes the cover of _The Adventures of Flamebird_. The character is a rather popular hero in El legend: a servant of Rao who went around the world helping those they could—for their gender was never revealed, if indeed they had even had one—and did so well on their quest that the Sun God himself gave them a home atop the highest mountain of the world and allowed them to call themselves Xen-El: Xen of the light, under the protection of the Helper God himself. The story itself was nothing truly original, merely a collection of legends that had lived in El for millennia before Kal’s great grandparents were even conceived...but Kal spent many a solitary hour poring over this book, devouring Flamebird’s adventures, their discovery, and their friendship with Nightwing, who rose in service of Vohc and became the first true Thinker of Krypton.

The book itself, in fact, shows the wear of such a love. It is creased and bent where multiple sets of hands were cajoled into holding it open for Kal...and later on, from many instances of bringing it along on official travels or solitary explorations, until the order was finally given to find it a home in the guests’ library. Kal’s lips twist with the memories. There are entire sentences of the work still carved into his mind. They are not, unfortunately, the ones his parents wanted him to learn—these were lost to time, but Kal retains the vague impression of certitude coming from them, the edge of despair creeping into their voices until they could no longer cling to the hope that Kal would, one day, reveal himself as Rao’s heir and lead El back to its former glory. Nonetheless, some parts of this book Kal could recite without looking at them, and he cannot help but smile when he sees such a beloved item in the hands of someone he hopes to come to know and respect in the future.

Batman must be attempting to teach themselves Ellon with this book. It is a commendable effort, and something Kal might have attempted in their situation, but if the alien’s face is anything to go by the experiment is not quite yielding the expected results. Then again, as far as Kal knows, Krypton’s alphabet is quite unique in the galaxy, so unless Batman is somehow familiar with something similar, it is hardly a surprise that they are finding it hard to make sense of.

Stepping closer, Kal clears his throat and says, “I might be able to help with that.”

It is unclear whether Batman was already aware of Kal’s presence or if they simply have commendable control of their body’s reactions. Either way, they give no sign of surprise that Kal can see. The window does offer quite the vantage point over the library, it is true. Its round frame dominates a circular room, covered floor to ceiling with the yields of thousands of years of book collecting. The truly rare editions, made of organic fibers rather than the synthetic paper everyone uses nowadays, are of course stored in the master library. Still, this particular collection is nothing to blush at, and Kal inhales the dusty smell of many books collected together with a form of reverence, even as he waits for Batman’s response.

The alien, for their part, hasn’t moved at all since Kal entered, as if waiting to see what might happen next. The image puts Kal in mind of a predator surveying its hunting ground...although, perhaps, with more benevolence than most. It would seem...unlikely, to most, for a royal guest to keep track of people’s comings and goings around here. Then again, those same people would also deem it impossible for Kal to notice half as much as he does, and so he does not entirely dismiss the possibility.

He endures Batman’s scrutiny instead, resisting the urge to flush and hunch in on himself even further than he already does. Thankfully, after a long moment of contemplation, Batman says something in their own language—Kal could slap himself for expecting anything more, really. Of course, Batman wouldn’t be able to answer. That is the entire point of this conversation, isn’t it? Rao, Kal. Keep up.

“I would,” Kal starts, and winces again. Simple words, in this situation, must be best. He tries again: “I want to help you speak Ellon.”

Batman stays silent again, the cowl obscuring their expression in a way that leaves Kal at a complete loss. He does not have the strength to wait as long as he did the first time around, though, and so he steps forward, points at _The Adventures of Flamebird_ and its colorful pages, and says, “This is a book.”

He might, possibly, have imagined the way Batman’s lips quirk into the not-quite-smile Kal is beginning to suspect is their best approximation of an encouraging expression. Regardless, no rebuttal or rejection comes, and Kal allows himself to sigh in relief when Batman dutifully repeats the word. Then, Batman gestures for Kal to sit down next to them and Kal takes a place on the windowsill with rather more giddy enthusiasm than he’d expected to feel.

“May I?” he asks, hand hovering over the book.

He waits for Batman to push the collection into his hand and flips through the pages to the beginning of _Flamebird and the Secret Lake_. There, he points at the illustration and says:

“This is water.”

“Water,” Batman repeats with a small nod.

Kal beams at them before he can think better of it, then flips through a few more pages to the part where Flamebird serves one of the old Lords of Krypton to prevent a servant from losing their place in the palace; points at the picture of a glass, and asks:

“What is this?”

“This is a glass,” Batman says.

Kal grins again, and goes through several more illustrations, naming objects and checking back on Batman’s memory at regular intervals. It is easy to find the material he needs, the book so beloved it feels like he might be able to find specific pages without even looking. At some point, he drops it in his excitement, and thanks Batman when they pick it up for him, but otherwise a solid half hour is spent on nothing but new vocabulary. Until, that is, Kal realizes he cannot possibly expect Batman to memorize all of this without any sort of support.

He manages to refrain from apologizing—although only because knows Batman would not understand the words—as he rises from his seat and goes to fetch Batman something to write on. He is not, technically, supposed to use the blank books stored at the bottom of the shelves, but then no one ever does, and he does not think they have been counted even once since he was born. He finds one with a black cover and the El coat of arms in silver embossing on the front, the lined pages inside ideal for a long list of vocabulary, and brings it back up to the windowsill.

“Thank you,” Batman says, and Kal gasps and blanches.

“Oh Rao, no, no! You can’t address me this way, you have no idea how much trouble—”

Kal cuts himself off, face and neck heated enough to cook on them. Of course Batman has no idea what they've done. Kal should have anticipated this, even: they did run into this particular problem before. Kal...well, he does not mind what is technically disrespect. Quite the contrary, in fact. But others? Oh, others definitely will mind, quick though they are to forget Kal is a Citadel Prince when their lust for gossip overtakes them. Batman, of course, is unaware of the problem, and does not have enough understanding of Ellon for Kal to explain it to them as of yet, not without running the risk of confusing them for a long time to come—which means the situation calls for some social gymnastics.

So, Batman is an alien. In theory, this would make them lower-ranked than any Kryptonian, let alone an Ellon in their own Principality. They are, however, also a guest of the royal family, however reluctant their hosts. This, in turn, will protect them from quite a lot of negative reactions, despite Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van’s disgrace. Servants’ modes of speaking are, of course, quite out of the question; but Batman cannot be allowed to address Citadel Lords and Ladies like equals either, or they will end up in a world of trouble. Which means they probably ought to talk like a Mountain Lord then, or at least as if close to them in status. It is, after all, unlikely that they will run into anyone ranking any lower than that while they are staying in the palace, and if they are to visit other parts of El...well, hopefully, they will wait until they can communicate better before they attempt it.

“Let’s try again,” Kal offers, once his grammar is decided. “’Thank you’.”

“Thank you,” Batman repeats, something in the way they move making Kal wonder if they have picked up on some of the social cues involved.

Regardless, they do not seem eager to question the new, quite different version of the phrase, and Kal beams again, hard enough to push the embarrassment of his earlier mistake almost out of his mind. He ignores the lingering traces of it for the time being in order to pull Batman’s notebook open, pen a rapid sketch of a glass in the left hand margin, and label the drawing in his most careful schoolboy handwriting. He hands Batman the pen when they tap his wrist, and repeats the word when asked, impressed when Batman adds notes in what looks like two different alphabets of their home world.

They archive the rest of what Batman has learned so far in the same manner, Kal flipping through the pages of _The Adventures of Flamebird_ between words, finding his favorite illustrations without much effort, even though it has been years. After the words come sentences, and Batman puts them through the same process as the rest, writing down both the way they are to be pronounced and what Kal assumes is a translation below the Kryptonian letters. Then, after a while, Batman speaks again, in that strange language of theirs.

Kal turns back to them, only for them to point down at the book and repeat whatever they were saying. The words, obviously, are entirely opaque, but the sentiment behind them seems easy to interpret, and Kal decides to go out on a limb in order to answer.

“This is one of my favorite books.”

He clutches the book to his chest with a wider smile than he remembers sporting in years, excited to meet someone whose reaction to the stories does not range from fond amusement to open disinterest for a collection of children’s tales.

“Favorite books,” Batman repeats, and Kal beams again, closing the book to point at the cover.

“They are Flamebird,” he tells Batman. “The legends say they were the very first El of Krypton.”

Batman looks—not invested in the topic, perhaps, but mildly interested, if their mouth is any indication. No more disinterested than before, at any rate. And Kal—Kal has had few occasions to discuss a book he is passionate about in his life, his family not much for fiction. This, most likely, explains how he manages to spend over three hours talking Batman’s ears off about the book and why, in the end, even the mortifying certitude he must have bored the alien almost to tears isn’t quite enough to prevent him from seeking their company the next day.

Batman progresses much faster than Kal expected. It takes them only two weeks to remember the numerous words Kal plied them with during their first lesson—something of a mistake, perhaps, to throw so many words at them and expect they would remember them all so soon—and then only about a week after that to grow quite at ease in asking for what they need at the dining table. Where before Kal used to remain silent while his parents or the rest of his family discussed one topic or another, he is now able to put this time to good use helping Batman improve their mastery of Ellon with an enthusiasm he does not remember feeling for the rest of his work before.

He does not neglect his studies, of course, and Kara eventually stops feeling the need to ask if he is still fit to take care of his nocturnal plants. He does, however, spend most of his afternoons in the guests’ library with Batman, learning bits and pieces of Batman’s language through their alphabet of sound, and engaging in more and more complex discussions about Flamebird and the various legends surrounding them.

He convinces Batman to let themselves be measured—with their uniform on—during the second week, and presents them with a black and cowled variation on the latest fads in Ellon fashion, the slashed sleeves of their new tunic opening up to reveal lighter gray underneath, and the strange motif of Batman’s original outfit embossed on a breastplate similar to what even Kal has taken to wearing on a regular basis.

“Thank you,” Batman says when they receive the gift, although Kal is rather unsurprised to find their expression as mild as ever.

“You are quite welcome,” he says. “I know the old one is cleaned every night, but I also know how uncomfortable it can be to wear the same thing every day.”

He cannot be sure Batman truly glances up at him at the words, covered as their face is, but he does get the impression of it nonetheless. They have, after all, been spending almost all their time together these days—save for the one evening his uncle received a small group of Worker Princes and Princesses in the Stateroom of Peace, and Kal put his family’s absence to good use, excusing himself early to work on his nocturnal specimens. Such proximity makes it easier to understand someone’s expression, limited though their shared vocabulary may be, and so Kal is, perhaps, not caught as wholly off guard as he could have been when Batman asks, “Is this Nightwing?”

Despite having anticipated the question, Kal blushes. It is one thing to draw inspiration from a legendary hero for a friend’s outfit, it is quite another to have them pick up on it. Not that Kal is too concerned about anyone else understanding the reference, seeing as Nightwing had fallen into disrepute long before he was born.

“Perhaps,” he hedges, though it does not feel like Batman believes him.

Nightwing was once as popular a legendary character as Flamebird, at least in El. He was, after all, the very first Thinker, and Thinkers are El’s favored Guild. Many Els have been engineered to be Thinkers in the past, and Kal’s family members are no exception. Why, his father even married into his own Guild, a rather unusual choice for royals. But where Nightwing, and his patron God Vohc, was once revered and respected as a leader of the people and a Builder of great things, later centuries turned him from ambitious to proud, from charismatic to authoritarian, from an instigator of beneficial change to an agent of chaos.

In El, at least, it is Rao who now presides over the Gods, guiding them with his light to follow the rituals set thousands of years before by early Ellons. Flamebird, too timid and too tangled in the story of Nightwing, has also been largely relegated to the role of fairytale character, following in Rao’s footsteps with unwavering loyalty and teaching the young how to make their parents proud. A worthy goal, Jor-El used to say when Kal was little; and Kal’s destiny, his mother would add. To make them proud. Not that it did them—or Kal—any good but then the future is a hard thing to predict, and Kal did not turn out to resemble Rao in the slightest.

It was, perhaps, quite inevitable that Kal would never meet anyone who shared his preference for the older versions of the tales.

“I like it,” Batman says at last.

The tears catching in Kal’s throat are a surprise but he does, thankfully, manage to keep them from falling.

Weeks turn into a month, and then another beyond that. Batman continues to progress in Ellon at astonishing speed, his—not their, as he tells Kal at the end of his first month on Krypton—ability to pick up on a word’s meaning and the complex grammatical structures of Ellon beyond anything Kal has ever heard of. Not, of course, that many people are willing to discuss much of their lives with him, language learning included, but still. He did read a few books on the theory of language acquisition, after all, and from what he sees either Batman comes from an especially quick-witted species, or he is even more exceptional than Kal suspected.

Eventually, Kal’s parents start talking to him a little. Nothing more than idle conversation in between more important errands, but it is still progress, and an occasion for Batman to practice his skills with someone other than Kal. It...worries Kal, in the beginning. A selfish reaction, he knows—but Batman is smart, with a dry sense of humor Kal can’t help but grin at, and prone to engage in the sort of verbal sparring that makes Kal feel more alive, somehow. Talking to him—existing next to him—is a breath of fresh air. It is the very first time Kal has met someone who doesn't merely tolerate him, but rather, for some reason, seems to appreciate him.

So it is...understandable, perhaps, if not honorable, that he fears losing this once Jor and Lara start addressing Batman over the dining table. He won’t do anything to stop it, of course. Knows better than to keep someone he has come to care for more than he ever planned to from making new friends and building himself a life on Krypton and in El...but there is still a part of him that sighs in relief once it becomes obvious something about the Prince and Princess of El’s conversation displeases Batman. Not much. Not enough for him to shun them entirely. Just—just enough for Kal to pick up on it and feel selfishly, shamefully glad.

Kal is, in all honesty, not as good a person as he wishes he could be.

Nevertheless, Batman does not desert Kal, and when the time comes for him to be invited to one of King Jor’s minor receptions, he appears on Kal’s doorstep long before they are to join the rest of the palace’s occupants for the descent into the Stateroom.

He looks—well, Kal has always known Batman looked good, even in the strange, almost goofy outfit he brought from this Earth of his. Shoulders like his cannot be disguised by what is clearly thought of as a set of armor. The softer fabrics of El’s ceremonial outfits, however, the elegant work of the decorative breastplate and the geometrical embroideries—all of these combine to reveal a body no one would have to blush at. A body Kal may well be thinking of a tad more often than he is supposed to, hidden as it is behind its layers of clothes.

“I would offer my assistance,” Kal says when he has made sure he isn’t staring, “but it seems to me like you have everything under control.”

“Contrary to what everyone seems to think, there are things I am quite able to handle on this planet.”

Kal chuckles despite himself, and hides the smile that lingers on his face by busying himself with the fastenings of his tunic. It has only been a week since Batman started talking to him as an equal and while Kal should, by all accounts, maintain a proper distance between him and someone so insignificant in Kryptonian society, he finds he does not want to. What does it matter, that Batman is a nobody from nowhere, if he is Kal’s friend?

“Well, the outfit suits you well,” Kal tells Batman as he finishes putting his breastplate in place.

“Black does seem to be my color,” Batman agrees, a dry blankness to his tone that makes Kal smile again, “even when everyone else satisfies themselves with the darkest _khaki_ s I’ve ever seen.”

It takes a bit of time for Kal to understand what _khaki_ means and provide a decent translation. When that is done, though, he cannot help but agree with Batman as to the rather monochromatic state of Kryptonian fashion. Most fabrics that Kal is familiar with are dark and muted, as if the light had been leached out of them, so that the solid black and gray of Batman’s outfits seem almost bright by comparison. It is a good look on his friend, though, and Kal finds himself toying with the idea of saying so as they move to join the rest of his family at the entrance to the Way Down.

“It is a fancier name than it needs,” Kal admits, rubbing at his neck in embarrassment, once Batman asks about it. “But it is the only way to reach the Stateroom of Peace from here, so….”

“The only way?”

“There are the service elevators, I suppose,” Kal says with a shrug.

There used to be five of those, actually, disseminated at various points around the palace, until the lower botany labs were built and one of the shafts had to be closed; one of Kal’s ancestors disliked the coming and going of servants so close to them. Nowadays the serving staff use the four remaining—small and uncomfortable—service shafts, deliveries are made through a specific balcony, and Kal’s family uses the Way Down, voices echoing against the room-wide walls of polished metal. The feeling of it is rather like sitting in an egg meant to welcome forty adult Kryptonians, and Kal cannot help but wonder how much of his discomfort every time he goes down rests on that particular architectural choice and how much is simply due to what he knows he will have to face downstairs.

“You live in a fortress,” Batman says after a pause.

His gaze is still firmly set forward, his shoulders unmoved. Yet there is something in his tone that squeezes at Kal’s heart, a sort of tightness he isn’t sure he can figure out on his own. It leaves him nervous and tense, more hunched than he would like as he fiddles with the hems of his sleeves.

His father, when he notices it, pulls Kal's hands apart without a word.

“It is unbecoming,” Kal’s mother says with a shake of her head. “You must rid yourself of this habit, Kal.”

Kal leaves his cuffs alone and mumbles an apology, though he can’t help but try and explain himself.

“No one is as fond of these occasions as they would like to appear,” Jor-El replies as the seven of them step into the elevator, “but you cannot shame our House with that sort of ridiculous behavior.”

Resisting the urge to wrap his arms around his midsection—a much bigger embarrassment than simple fiddling—Kal nods at the ground. It is, in all honesty, a good thing that Batman is here. Kal has no desire for his friend to realize how pathetic he can be just yet—or perhaps ever—and so it is easier to keep his shoulders straight than it would usually be. Besides, while Kal has no illusion about the interest people may find in him—very little, if any—Batman still hasn’t tired of him. In fact, the alien has treated him with something not unlike a form of fondness, like tolerating a faulty but well-worn hunit. It isn’t much. Kal knows it isn’t much. It is, however, better than he remembers ever knowing elsewhere, and it helps him keep his self-consciousness at bay as he takes a small step away from his family and toward Batman.

They both stay quiet during the ride down, Batman having learned by now not to expect too much conversation from Kal’s parents. Brilliant scientists they may both be, but they are not teachers, nor very patient. And so, despite the keenness of Batman’s mind, behind that strange cowl of his, he has been forced to content with Kal as his only company...until, that is, rumors of his progress reached the Citadel Lord and Ladies, and he was invited to this latest function.

“Are you always this nervous?” Batman asks just before they exit the elevator.

Kal would like to have the conversational skill and the confidence to answer ‘often enough’, but in truth it is not that much of an exaggeration to say, “Yes.”

Batman, thankfully, is not prone to clicking his tongue, shaking his head or, indeed, acknowledging his emotions or opinions in any voluntary way at all. This is good, because while Kal is slowly learning to read the alien—the man, he should probably call him—it makes it easier to pretend Batman doesn’t think he is being ridiculous for this. Kal squares his shoulders instead, breathing in and bracing himself just as the doors to the Stateroom open and the members of the royal family are introduced by order of importance.

The Stateroom, far too vast for this fairly intimate assembly, has been divided in two for the night. At the front, closest to the exit of the Way Down, stands the royal table, at which Batman, Kal, and the rest of the family will sit on display for all the court to see for the duration of dinner. Then the assembly will move to the back of the room for the evening’s first dance—a mandatory exercise, Kal has been informed—and the other points of interest. There are professional dancers, two magicians, three jugglers, and one woman whose business is in fire; Kal would rather spend the evening admiring them all than dance for even a few minutes, but that is, unfortunately, not an option.

By Kal’s side, Batman seems decidedly unperturbed by the crowd, the noise, and the myriad of occasions one has to embarrass themselves in this sort of public setting. He moves the way he has always done, head held high as a king’s, back unbowed, step unafraid. He behaves, in fact, more like a prince than Kal knows how to.

As soon as the first nobles have paid their respects to the king and come to engage the mysterious resident of the palace, Batman slips into an almost liquid version of himself. His mouth stretches into a smile, the set of his shoulders mellows, and even his voice softens enough to become almost unrecognizable. It is like watching the man become another part of himself entirely, and Kal would gape if he were not as aware of their audience as he is.

He follows Batman at a distance instead, watching him charm Citadel Lord after Citadel Lady, easy and practiced despite the still-obvious gaps in his vocabulary. It is a talent Kal could never cultivate, and a deep sense of shame settles in his chest, almost obscuring the pride he feels in his friend’s talent. The assembly, predictably enough, pays him little mind. Kal is used to that treatment, however, and while it is never pleasant it is easier, with Batman here, to push past the stopping power of indifferent disdain and listen to the gossip circulating in the room.

If, that is, multiple talks of financial transactions can be considered gossip. Kal is...too well-known as an incompetent to join any of the conversation, but mining projects seem to be all the rage in El, and more than one Lord or Lady is already considering what to do for the king’s birthday, in six months’ time.

Slowly, Kal trails Batman through the dining half of the Stateroom, wondering if this was how Kara felt when she was first allowed in polite society twenty-five years ago. They make small talk with many people, Batman coming up with a new way of calling Krypton grandiose for each pair of ears that would not accept anything less, and answering countless variations of the question: “What is your favorite thing in El?”

No one, Kal notices, asks whether Batman misses his home planet at all. Not that he would answer—in Kal's experience, attempts to make the man open up about his emotions go about as well as punching the wall of the Citadel and expecting a door to open. Still, Kal cannot help but think the asking of that question matters, perhaps even as much as the answer. He might be biased, of course. Trying to bolster his own importance. Even so, he is glad he had the mind to ask this, at least once.

They make their way back to the front of the room, where the dining bell will soon call them and the rest of the royals. Cold golden light shines over the room in waves, like a winter sun filtered through water. It gives the whole scene an eerie look, as if seen in a dream, though Kal does not remember it feeling like this before. Eventually, he and this mellowed version of Batman catch up to a small group composed of Kal’s family, all caught in conversation with General Dru-Zod.

“You don’t like him?” Batman asks, tone flat enough to almost turn it into an affirmation.

“I don’t believe he is very fond of me either,” Kal mutters in return, trying and failing to sidestep the question.

He is under no illusion that Batman missed the evasion, of course. Still, the man has the kindness not to laugh at the childish sentiment, though Kal can’t help but feel like he wants to. Batman approaches the conversational circle, but Kal knows where his own place in this particular configuration is and stands by a nearby table instead, just far enough behind his parents to affect ignorance should any courtly eye wander his way. He can’t be sure Batman glancing at him through the lenses of his cowl is anything more than a figment of his imagination, but he does give a little shrug just the same. Just in case. It is good, after all, for Batman to have more interesting things to do than content himself with Kal’s company all day. This evening will do him good, and if it means he makes better friends than Kal in the process, well, it will have—it will be alright. Perfectly fine.

As it is, though, none of the speakers pay Batman much attention, and Kal watches General Dru-Zod as he clinks his glass against Zor-El’s first, and Kara’s second.

“To a most excellent deal,” he says.

The small circle sips on what Kal assumes is one of the Zodri wines the general is so fond of, unbothered by Batman’s empty hands. The silence settles around them as they savor the taste, Kal’s uncle swishing the wine around his mouth before declaring it absolutely delicious. Kara sways after her second sip, closing her eyes and saying, “Forgive me, this is perhaps a little strong,” as if Kal hadn’t seen her drink men twice her size under a table.

“Strong wine for a strong future,” Dru-Zod replies, self-assured. “This proposition is a boon from the Gods!”

“This proposition hasn’t been signed yet,” Kal’s mother counters in a quiet, yet firm voice.

Around her, the air tenses. Batman, caught between her and Dru-Zod’s piercing gaze, remains unmoved, while Kal’s shoulders bunch together even as he looks away. He knows these people’s faces well enough by now: there is no need for him to look at them to imagine the pursing of his cousin’s lips, the frown on his aunt’s face. The tightness of his uncle’s jaw when he hisses, “Sister.”

“I am but speaking the truth,” Lara replies, still in an undertone. “You and all your Laborer friends may rejoice all you want, but none of your pretty gifts will amount to anything if Tsiahm-Lo changes his mind at the last second.”

“Gifts have nothing to do with his decision,” Kal’s aunt replies in a mild, somewhat miffed tone. “His Majesty is perfectly capable of making his own choices, and no one here has any close contact with him.”

“Not directly,” Kara remarks.

Kal almost hears the air grow tense after her words. He cannot fathom Batman’s expression has changed much...nor that anyone else looks very pleased. Not with the heaviness of the silence around them. Still, he keeps his eyes turned away from his family, sweeping in wide arcs over the Stateroom and its crowd of milling nobility, the performers entertaining the crowd until the royal family finally feels the need to eat. Lady Ona-Set, robes swishing around her, wanders between tables, no doubt lamenting the excessively modern arrangements of cutlery.

“Nevertheless,” Jor says with a tone of finality, “it would do Tsiahm-Lo good, rethinking his position. The Melokariel Proposition is pure folly, and my father—”

Lady Ona-Set must have stirred some dust: something tickles at Kal’s nose and he finds himself sneezing three times in rapid succession.

“Perhaps we should not speak of this where a foreigner can hear,” Kara interrupts Jor, switching to Council.

“Perhaps you are right,” Dru-Zod replies, “although there is nothing much more to be discussed. Krypton has been stagnating for far too long, and this project will serve to revive it.”

“You are a fool if you believe that,” Jor retorts with enough feeling to turn Kal’s head towards him, “and so are the Wise—”

“Jor!” Zor and Lara hiss at the same time.

On his chair, Kal stiffens. It is not done, to openly disagree with the Wise Council. Their hearing is quite keen and their new militia, specifically trained in Kandor to help unify the planet under one rule, has lengthened the reach of their arm. El holds some power in Krypton’s politics and retains its own police force, still—as does Zod and the distant Principality of Quod—but even Kal has heard whispers of how briefly prisoners taken by the Council’s militia remain in Ellon prisons. When, that is, they visit them at all. Even for royals, it is not done, to openly disagree with the Wise Council.

For a moment, Kal thinks his family members will attempt to resurrect the topic and keep the conversation going. They spend a long time looking pensively at their glasses instead and then, without a word, the king leads his entourage up to the main table.

The meal starts quietly enough, but the conversation on Kal’s right picks up again by the time the first dishes are brought out. To his left, Batman eyes the various foods with a tight pinch to his lips, and Kal smiles, even as he points out his favorites as well as one thing he is not very fond of but believes Batman might enjoy. They are well into the meal—in silence, for Batman is not one for idle chatter—when Batman asks, “What does your grandfather have to do with the Melokariel Proposition?”

Kal almost chokes on his glass of water, and has to reach for a napkin with some urgency to cover the blunder. He is flushing, he knows it, and his heart is pounding hard when he answers with a question of his own.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Your grandfather,” Batman repeats without looking away from his food, perfect profile insufficient for Kal to figure out what he is thinking. “Your family was talking about the Melokariel Proposition earlier. Your grandfather was mentioned, but I fail to understand how he is related to it.”

For the barest moment, Kal gapes. He is, after all, widely known for his disinterest in the Melokariel Proposition, and his utter inability to change that fact. That Batman would have questions about it had never crossed his mind, let alone that he would come to Kal of all people for answers.

“I’m afraid,” he says with some difficulty, cheeks burning with too-familiar shame, “you misunderstand me. I meant I don’t know what the Melokariel Proposition is.”

Batman’s head turns toward him. The man’s eyes are invisible, and yet Kal still wishes he could squirm away from them.

“The Melokariel Proposition,” Batman repeats. “I have been here more than two and a half months, and I’ve heard it discussed at least twice a week since then.”

“Then,” Kal admits, shoulders drooping almost of their own accord, “you have a better mind for these sorts of things than I do.”

There is no change in Batman’s posture, no indication in his expression or on his face that what he has just heard displeased him. This does not in any way prevent Kal from feeling like a great divide has suddenly opened up between them.

Kal collapses at the door to the elevator shaft in his labs with a grunt of relief, and takes a couple of minutes to get his breathing back under control. His outfit rearranges into more palace-appropriate garments with a tickle, the slick feeling of dirty water and blood sending his stomach reeling. He wishes sometimes that he could just use one of the regular elevators for these outings of his. The scrutiny that would bring him, however...it would be ill advised, at best. And an unnecessary complication besides. So, abandoned shaft it is, though the necessity of the scheme does not prevent Kal from snorting, from time to time, as he tries to picture his parents’ expressions should they learn of this habit of his.

“Avoiding servants?” Kryo asks when Kal slowly pushes himself to his feet.

“Always a success,” Kal replies, and does not watch Kryo bob up and down in acknowledgment.

His entire body is sorer than it has been a while, bruises growing on top of bruises. Tonight was not a good night. Multiple incidents; he’ll have to tell his family tomorrow. A dozen plants dead. Significant structural damage—well, no, that he can’t share. They would want to see it if he did, and it isn’t as though Kal could show them. In any case, it will be at least three days until Kal can afford to leave his work again.

Three days might be pushing his luck a little, Kal knows. Two would arouse less suspicion. But the truth is, this is not an effort Kal is willing to expend, not when his only wish is to lie down and sleep for an entire week undisturbed. He may have to, at some point—Batman still has questions about the workings of El in particular and Krypton in general, and Kal is still the only one willing to answer him. Even that, though, has lost quite a lot of its appeal.

Teaching Batman about his surroundings used to be a breath of fresh air, a dream of spring in the middle of winter. Ever since the ball, though, Batman has been—it feels like something broke. And—it makes sense. Somewhat. Kal was—he has never been an interesting person to begin with. A subject of morbid fascination, maybe. A specimen for the study of Krypton’s society. A cautionary tale for those foolish enough to dream of following into Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van’s hubris-filled footsteps, reminding them that wishing for Krypton’s next great leader will only get them someone like Kal.

An interesting person, though? Not really.

The thought twists at Kal’s gut, but he swallows the hard truth nonetheless. Tears won’t change things that are, and so he gulps them down and makes himself face the facts while he walks to the showers at the back of the labs. He is uninteresting. That, he knew. But at the very least, Batman used to find him—useful. Tolerable, maybe. A companion of limited worth, but still preferable to complete solitude and then...well, then, Kal did not see Batman for almost two weeks.

Three weeks in, and they have finally resumed their usual study sessions, but it is easy to see the tone of them has shifted. There are as many questions as there have ever been, as many topics to touch upon. Batman still teaches whatever English Kal is willing to learn. But where before these moments flowed like long exchanges between friends, it seems to Kal Batman is now merely perusing a list of references, gathering information to examine it at a later date. Seeking pointers to guide his solitary studies rather than answers from someone he trusts. It is—it makes sense. Kal should have known it would happen. Batman has figured him out and moved on. He should have known. He should have. He should.

But he did not, and tonight more than ever the thought twists inside him, clawing at his throat and the corners of his eyes in a way it hasn’t in the three months and some weeks since Batman crash-landed on Krypton.

It is no use, spending so much time thinking of this. Kal knows this, and tries to push the thoughts out of his mind as he steps under the shower. Clearly, Batman was unwilling to bother with someone uninterested by the topic of the Melokariel Proposition. That is that; no more to say on the subject.

Although it does, of course, beg the question of why Batman has become so invested in that project in the first place. What does an alien who did not even come from this galaxy care about a strictly Kryptonian affair? Everyone, after all, keeps repeating the truth that no neighboring planet will be affected, let alone Batman’s distant and unknown solar system. Why, then, has the man developed such curiosity about it? That he did not know of Krypton’s existence even while passing by it close enough to crash on it after an accident, Kal can believe. Light-speed spacecrafts are all equipped with automated pilots, and Batman did say he was traveling on business, attempting to reach friends who had required his help. The lack of help, too, is unsurprising. Batman did not have any way to communicate for a long time, and no one—not even Kal, he realizes, wincing—thought to _offer_ help in getting him back home.

But why would he grow so passionate about the Melokariel Proposition as to reject Kal on the sole basis of his lack of interest in it?

“Would you like me to order some breakfast to be brought up?” Kryo asks when Kal emerges from his shower in a hurry and immediately shoves himself into his now-anthracite tunic.

“In two hours, please,” Kal replies. “I have something to do, first.”

It must be the space making him paranoid. It must be. There is too much of an echo, down there, too much darkness, like a cave of insanely regular proportions. Still, the doubt clings to Kal’s skin as he strides across the space, drooping leaves brushing at his face and arms as he goes on, wishing desperately for answers—or, failing that, for some way to stop thinking altogether...two things he might, in fact, be able to find in the same place.

_The Adventures of Flamebird_ has always been a source of comfort to him, well-worn pages and cover a soothing sight of their own by now. It would do him good to hold it, to lose himself in the myriad of tales it contains and the distant, unknowable lands of Krypton in its earliest days. It would ease his mind; soothe him enough, perhaps, to let him sleep and forget the night’s casualties, at least long enough to survive. And since the book has been residing in Batman’s bedchamber for several weeks now, perhaps Kal will manage to seize whatever feeble courage he has and ask some of the questions that, he can tell, will not leave him alone otherwise.

He has no desire to do it. Kal is many things, but brave is not one of them, and the fear of losing whatever shreds of Batman’s friendship he still has stops him in his tracks at the bifurcation between the guests’ quarters and the royal apartments. He is, however, a Prince of El. Not the most glorious of them, and not a particularly good one, either; but if he suspects something strange is going on in the palace, it _is_ his duty to examine it. He must do this, and he must do this fairly—he cannot let his desire for friendship blind him to whatever reasons Batman might have to research a planet-wide project involving so much energy...and if those reasons come with ill intent, then Kal will have to stop the man. Friend or no.

Kal knows his duty, he truly does, but he cannot deny that relief washes over him, a few minutes later, when Batman does not answer the knock on his door. For a brief moment, the urge to forget about all of this seizes him, and he almost turns back. But tonight has been a bad night, and a dozen pe—plants have been lost by his fault. Four of them only saplings. He should have—done many things. He did not, and now they are lost, and that knowledge is what spurs him on to push Batman’s door open. The book can wait, though Kal will miss its presence tonight; his questions cannot.

Making no noise across the carpeted floor is an easy feat, with shoes as light and supple as socks. Even then Kal is wary. Batman, he has learned, sleeps lightly. And, these days, most likely in short stretches. The first, Batman has admitted to him directly. The second, Kal is forced to assume from what he has seen of the man. He naps at random times, and is irritated and bad-tempered when left to sleep longer than he meant to. He has the uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere, without needing to adopt an even vaguely horizontal position. All of these are symptoms Kal recognizes from his own poor sleeping habits, ways to get some rest between his nightly work and the demands of a princely life. It is neither healthy nor agreeable, but Kal has grown used to it, and he is at least capable of recognizing the signs of it in another, when faced with them.

All of this, of course, can mean only one thing: something has come to disrupt Batman’s sleeping patterns since he distanced himself from Kal. Something that probably can’t be the fault of any other Kryptonian, for Kal is still the only one to speak to Batman with any regularity, and he knows perfectly well no work was given to the man besides making sure he does not accidentally insult his hosts, or his hosts’ guests. The question now is to find out what, exactly, that something is.

Kal, stomach heavy as a stone, crosses from Batman’s living quarters into his bedchamber without a sound, relieved to find the man asleep with his back to the door. He is snoring, too, soft and regular, and Kal allows himself a relieved breath before he creeps closer, knowing Batman well enough by now to realize nothing of importance in his Kryptonian life will be kept out of his reach.

Batman’s Earth outfit rests on a dummy by the bedside, mended torso, yellow belt and all. To the right of that, immediately left of the bed, the crimson glow of the moon washes over a pile of books—some Kal recognizes, some he doesn’t—with some kind of sharp-looking weapon and, at the top, a bracelet of some kind sporting the all-too-familiar symbol of the Green Lanterns. Kal can’t help but stare at it for far longer than he should before he grabs it, shoves it into a brand-new inside pocket of his tunic, and has to put all his focus into exiting as quietly as he came in.

He stops outside of Batman’s quarters for a moment, grateful for Kryo and its never ending watch as he tries to sort through his thoughts. A Green Lantern! In the palace! If anyone knew this—no. Better not think of it. Not, at any rate, until Kal has decided what to do about this information. He is not thinking clearly, he knows. Cannot possibly handle this information with the amount of care and objectivity it requires on his own, not without several days to ponder it, and he does not have that kind of time. This in turn can mean but one thing: he needs counsel, and not from Kryo, which does not know the meaning of affection. No, he needs someone whom he can trust, and someone who will understand, at least in part, the dilemma he finds himself in.

With a clear path in mind at last, Kal sighs, braces himself, and sets off toward the upper levels of the royal palace.

Kara’s pillow slaps him in the face with enough force to disorient him for a moment, and Kal only owes the lack of a second blow to the sharpness of her reflexes. She hisses imprecations at him for a while, until he pulls out Batman’s bracelet and cuts her short. Without a word, Kara reaches for the item, scowling when Kal pulls it out of her reach on reflex. She sits up straighter and asks:

“Where did you get this? I swear to the Gods, Kal, if you contacted the Green Lanterns—”

“Do you truly think I would be so foolish?” Kal hisses back.

There are those on Krypton who have managed to get in touch with the Green Lanterns and remained on the planet, but Kal has never contacted any of them directly, though he is working with them after a fashion. The Green Lanterns’ name may only serve as a curse in the higher circles of Krypton, but the general population is hardly fond of them either.

“Then where in Vohc’s name did you find this?”

“Batman’s room, as a matter of fact,” Kal admits.

Kara mutters something that sounds a lot like ‘Rao help us’ with the deepest scowl Kal has ever seen on her face. He supposes he cannot blame her for it. She looks him straight in the eyes then, still frowning, and Kal has to force himself to hold her gaze, to show her without words that he is not entirely careless but merely out of his depth.

Eventually, Kara’s face goes through a complicated movement and, with the twist of her mouth that signals questions too delicate to be dealt with immediately, she asks, “Are you sure no one else knows?”

Kal nods with a sigh of relief. He can’t know for sure what Kara’s advice will be, but whatever happens next, at least he can have some control over the situation, and maybe—hopefully—spare Batman the worst outcomes. Colluding with the Green Lanterns would send him to jail, at best—and not an Ellon one, at that. Kal may not be an expert on the topic, but he knows his uncle: there are not many things in this world that tighten Zor-El’s jaw with a mere mention, and the people who leave El for Kandorian cells tend not to come back.

“Good,” Kara says.

“Do you think the Lanterns could have sent him here on purpose?” Kal asks, heart in his throat. “I don’t think so, but I—I don’t know that I can tell what I wish to be the truth apart from what really is.”

Kara clicks her tongue as she scoots to the edge of her bed and crushes Kal into a brusque hug.

“They would have to be stupid to do that,” she says after she releases him. “Much though Krypton’s power may be….”

“Diminished?”

For once, Kara’s distinctly unimpressed look leaves Kal mostly unaffected. Krypton has been steadily declining for several centuries now, and the Wise Council’s reach has only grown upon Krypton these past decades, not beyond it.

“Let’s call it that,” Kara begrudges after a beat. “Nevertheless, we are still a force to be reckoned with. It would be foolish of them to come look for trouble our way when we have respected the terms of the Treaty. Especially with Leaark and Axor at each other’s throats, at any rate.”

Kal does not know what is going on between those two planets exactly, although he understands some kind of blood feud is involved. Still, it does not take a genius to grasp why the Green Lanterns would be keeping an eye on that rather than spying on a long-dormant enemy who has made no effort to communicate with the rest of the galaxy since the Independence Wars. The thought releases something in Kal’s chest, but only for a short while.

Just because Kara sees things this way, after all, does not mean her father would agree, to say nothing of the Wise Council. Kal wouldn’t expect them to care whether a friend of the Lanterns came to Krypton by design or by accident. And Batman...well, even assuming he was lying when he said he knew nothing of Krypton when he landed there, his species, his planet, and even his solar system have no presence in Krypton’s database. There is nothing, intergalactic law or otherwise, to forbid Batman from associating with the Lanterns from Earth, so why should he be punished for it?

But then, of course, there is also the matter of his latest activities.

“I think,” Kal says with a heavy heart, “we still need to keep an eye on him.”

Relating his reasoning to Kara only takes a few minutes, but Kal still feels like he has been speaking forever by the end of it. It is the right thing to do, he knows. Even for Batman’s sake—it wouldn’t do to let him involve himself in something as fraught as the Melokariel Proposition without at least a warning. That thought, however, does not do much to ease the feeling that he is betraying a friend, and he knows he has been too obvious in his worry when Kara loops an arm around his shoulders again.

“Perhaps you should have a conversation with him, and take his version of things into account before we decide what to do about him. If he is planning to do harm to Krypton, we will need to stop him...but I see no need to punish him if he is only an unlucky traveler a little too curious about things he does not understand.”

Kal nods, too afraid to voice the thought weighing on his mind: Batman seems too smart not to have any notion of what he is doing. Kal is still hoping all of this is an unfortunate misunderstanding, but already his heart sinks with the possibility of tragedy.

“He hasn’t been friendly toward me since your father’s latest ball,” he admits, glad that he manages to keep the tears clogging his throat out of his voice. “I doubt he would listen to me even if I tried to broach the topic...and it is too risky to have that conversation in the more public places of the palace.”

“Well,” Kara sighs, settling back under the covers, “the other you, then.”


	2. Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kal-El has lost Batman's favor, but no matter: Shadow is right there and he's just as eager to learn from the alien hero as his civilian counterpart.

“Can you see him?”

Shadow leans a little harder on his hands, peering over the curve of the Citadel dome to survey one of several guest quarters’ balconies. In the sky, Krypton’s moons shine crimson over the lands, their light like blood spread over the planes of the jagged mountains and the pale stone of the Citadel, the balconies below painted in a burgundy darker than even Shadow’s suit.

“Not yet,” he tells Support, his own voice too loud in the confines of his helmet. “Maybe he’s just not in the mood to come out tonight.”

“You would know better than me,” Kara replies, slipping out of her more professional tones. “I am not his friend.”

The truth is, neither is Shadow. He may have brought Batman out of his destroyed spacecraft and into the Els’ residence, but they have not talked to one another—nor, indeed had any contact at all—since that fateful winter day. It is easy for Shadow to remember it: the bitter cold biting at the tips of his fingers after the suit had to divert power away from temperature regulation for a while. The ache in his limbs even as he set dreams of his bed aside and decided to push himself through another rescue. The burning heat of flames licking at his face once he pulled Batman out of his destroyed spacecraft and willed his helmet off to examine the man’s wounds. Batman, on the other hand, was unconscious for the whole process, and kept under for over a day after his rescue. What little connection exists between him and Shadow is one-sided, at best.

Not that Shadow has not been paying attention to the shipwrecked man. He has kept a close ear to the gossip spread about him, just in case curiosity should have turned into resentment. In the end, though, the ever-faster advance of the Melokariel Proposition has kept most of El—and Shadow—far too busy to worry about a lone alien who does not even have the decency to look different from regular Kryptonians. This, of course, proved to be an oversight once Batman, smarter than most Kryptonians and in a far better position to notice the abnormalities in the Principality’s political proceedings, started noticing something was amiss and taking an interest in the situation.

As it is, though, there is nothing Shadow can do about it but be wary of Batman’s involvement. It is rumored that Pol Vea-Ry, the Wise Queen of Warriors, will call for another vote on the matter soon; and, like Kara, Shadow is inclined to agree with those who speculate that Tsiahm-Lo will vote with her...and with two Council members out of five in favor, it is likely that those in El who would rather not see the project come to fruition will continue on the same road they were already taking, only at a harder pace than before. There will be many families reaching for the colonies in the months to come, and more militia—Ellon or otherwise—doing everything they can to prevent that. There is blood on the walls of the Citadel. Some of it, Shadow helped put there. More often than not, though, he failed to save those who spilled it, and in the urgency of the situation, Batman, like many of the pettier offenders Shadow used to worry about in the beginning, had to fall low on the list of priorities.

Until, that is, it was discovered that the alien has had dealings with the Green Lanterns.

“There he comes,” Shadow says.

Not a moment too soon, either. The suit is strong enough to help with most physical tasks Shadow has to perform, but sticking to the wall like an overgrown spider requires a lot of muscle control, and the effort never fails to leave Shadow stiff and uncomfortable.

“Is he alone?”

Shadow waits until Batman crosses the balcony and braces his arms against the railing, gazing over the outer city and the mountains beyond, before he answers in the affirmative.

“Good,” Kara says. Then, in a grumble: “I wish the repairs on my handscreen weren't taking so long. I hate being unable to see what is going on on your end.”

“I’d offer to describe everything,” Shadow retorts as he braces himself for a jump, “but I’m afraid that would make me sound a tad more insane than I’d like to appear.”

He smirks when Kara snorts. Then he pushes against the Citadel wall and, in a small shower of everlasting concrete, drops a dozen feet downwards. He can almost hear Kara’s eyes roll when he puts the elasticity of his suit to good use and sticks the landing with very little impact to his joints. Vain, he realizes, but still much faster than crawling downward—and much more dignified too.

“I was wondering if you’d show yourself,” Batman says, quiet and unsurprised, as Shadow rises to his feet.

And here Kara thought _Shadow_ enjoyed dramatics.

He takes a step closer to Batman, careful to remain in the part of the balcony that can’t be seen from the inside, and does not put much effort in disguising his amusement when he speaks.

“You could have said something,” he replies, adopting the grammatical forms of a middle-class man addressing an equal.

He rolls his eyes when Batman chooses stony silence over even a simple shrug. Part of Shadow wants to wait the man out, but he decides to be the bigger masked creature and ask:

“Do you know who I am?”

“I’ve heard of you.”

Batman falls into silence again. Under his helmet, Shadow's mouth opens in disbelief. Theatrics can be useful, he will admit to that much, especially where civilians are concerned. That Batman would use the same tactics on him, though? It rankles more than Shadow would have anticipated, and his shoulders stiffen in response. He manages to suppress a scoff at the last second, and then goes to stand at the railing, careful to stay out of view from the room, just in case.

Kal-El, of course, would shrink from such a chilly welcome and sink into himself. Shadow knows he cannot afford to let himself be defeated so easily, though, and so he ignores both Batman’s reservation and Kara’s comment—“How in Rao’s name did you of all people manage to draw this man into a conversation?”—before he reaches into his pocket and produces the Green Lanterns’ bracelet.

“I think this is yours,” he tells Batman.

He does not change his tone—casual, but polite. A simple conversation between strangers of equal ranking, though technically it is something of a demotion for Batman; but the other man still gives him a sharp look before he takes his bracelet back. His expression, mostly unchanged, seems grimmer than usual but not outright hostile, and Shadow waits the silence out, solid as a stone and patient as the sun. Shadow is not a petty creature—cannot afford to be—but he cannot be the only one to make a move here.

“The Els say you brought me here.”

This is not the reaction Shadow was hoping for, but it is not rejection, either, and so he shrugs as he says, “I thought this would be where you’d have the best chance of survival...if any. Would you rather I’d left you where I found you?”

“How did you know they would take me in?”

“Gods, he is starting to remind me of Queen Ra-Ul,” Kara sighs in Shadow’s ears.

It is not a compliment.

“The Prince and his wife are well known for their devotion to Rao,” Shadow says, ignoring Kara's comment. “Assuming they would help you didn’t seem like that big a leap of faith.”

It is difficult to say whether Batman means for his scoff to go unnoticed or not, but Shadow hears it either way. He knows better than to react to it, though, and says instead:

“I would have had more reservations, if I’d known you were working with one of Krypton’s oldest and most prominent enemies.”

The only entities Krypton—especially its upper classes—resents more than the Green Lanterns are Feyar, Paom, and Koahu: three planets who formed an alliance to fight their way free of Kryptonian dominion long before the Lanterns were ever a dream. Still, fourth on the list of mortal enemies of your host planet is nothing to scoff at, and Shadow knows for a fact that Batman is smart enough to realize that.

“I knew some people would be unhappy about the connection,” Batman says. “I did not expect you to be one of them.”

“Do you always evade questions, or are you just giving me special treatment?”

“I like to keep my options open.”

On the other end of the line, Kara groans. Shadow does not react in any way that will be obvious to Batman, but he is rather inclined to agree. He rolls his eyes again, but does not quite manage to prevent his shoulders from tightening a fraction. He had been expecting some evasion on Batman’s part. He would have attempted the same if their positions were reversed. But what Batman is doing now is starting to verge on sabotage, and neither Shadow nor Kara—nor, he suspects, Batman himself—have time to waste on this particular dance.

“I’m not here to antagonize you,” he tells Batman, pausing to give him the time to absorb the new word. “You’re right, I work with the Lanterns too. Or I work with people who work with them, to be precise. I do still need to know what you’re doing here.”

“I’m not a spy,” Batman says.

“’That’s what a spy’d say’,” Kara says in an exaggerated version of Shadow’s more casual grammar, her voice dropping a half-octave at least.

Under the helmet, Shadow rolls his eyes.

“That, I can believe,” he says, ignoring the slap of what he assumes is Kara’s hand hitting her forehead. “You have still been asking too many questions about the Melokariel Proposition, and you've been seen in places you shouldn’t have been visiting.”

Batman has also been seen leaving his rooms at night, via this very balcony. Sending Kryo to spy on him was not an easy decision to make, and a sliver of Kal’s shame pricks at Shadow’s conscience, but he pushes it aside. The literary association between him and The Shadow may not have been his choice, but he does take the role seriously, and one whose mission it is to protect an entire realm cannot afford to let even friendship stop them.

“Maybe you don’t care about the consequences that could have for the House of El—”

“No one would suspect them of colluding with me,” Batman cuts in with a slight snap to his voice. “Everyone at court knows the only one of them who will spend any time with me is a timid simpleton. They will assume he couldn’t have guessed anything, and they will be right.”

Batman has gone back to higher-class inflections for this last sentence, the sudden distance he puts between himself and Shadow a stark reminder of Kal’s experiences at court, and it takes more effort than it usually would to ignore the wound and remain Shadow.

“Be that as it may,” Shadow says, relieved to hear no tightness in his voice, “I need—”

“Kal!” Kara all but shouts at him, “say something, for Vohc’s sake! You are not a simpleton!”

“The Els have been helpful, in their way,” Shadow tells Batman without acknowledging his cousin, “and considering their potential replacements, it’s in the Principality’s best interest that they stay in power, at least for the moment.”

“If you say so,” Batman says.

His face has not changed, but Shadow has heard Batman’s voice enough to recognize the smirk in his tone. It gives the impression of something more behind the word, some sort of double meaning, almost suggestive. Shadow’s face heats up beneath his helmet, and he finds himself abruptly glad that Batman cannot see him. Not that it does him any good, as his blush is perfectly audible when he answers:

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not what’s happening here.”

“If you say so,” Batman repeats, mild and unconcerned.

“That,” Kara sighs into her communicator, “was pathetic.”

Shadow is not the type of creature whose shoulders hunch at the slightest provocation, but that does not mean he disagrees with his cousin’s words. It is hardly a surprise that he lost the upper hand several questions ago. He knew, after all, that this was Batman’s aim, and allowed the conversation to progress anyway because he felt cooperation would be a better way to proceed...and also, in large part, because he thought Batman would reciprocate. He did not, though, and now Shadow realizes he will need to pry if he wants to leave this conversation with any clear information.

The problem being, of course, that he has no idea how to do that.

Shadow was never meant to interrogate anyone, especially not someone who evidently knows his way around inconvenient questions. Militia men, for the most part, expect brute force, because this is what they were trained against, which makes it easy to trick them with more subtle tactics. And in any case, half of the time either Kara or Kal can glean more precise information through their superiors, anyway. Interrogating Batman, though, let alone in a meaningful way? Shadow never learned how to do that. At first, it was naivety. Shadow once thought the Militia members who hurt citizens during arrests, or were unnecessarily violent with them, were rogue elements, and that bringing them to justice with sufficiently obvious proof would be enough to shatter what he believed was inertia on their superiors’ parts. This happened often in the beginning, hope holding out against all else, even proof at times. But as time went on, it became apparent El’s police forces—and, later, the Council’s Militia—did not focus on criminals with nearly as much zeal as they did on reminding the whole of El that the Wise Council loved them, protected them, and deserved nothing less than their utter respect and total obedience. Eventually, Shadow saw enough of these visits—often reasonably scheduled, but just as often happening late at night, or other times when citizens would not have expected to be visited.

One day, one such house call ended with the police dragging an entire family away from their home in the middle of the night, pushing them all into an aircraft, and spiriting them away over the mountains. Shadow stood and watched as it happened, a weight like stones in his guts telling him he ought to intervene. The younger, more hopeful part of him—the one that still believed the way the members of the court rejected the lower classes’ grammatical forms of Ellon so completely as to make them almost into a foreign language had to be a bug rather than a feature—told him to wait. Wait, make sure. Trust that things would turn out all right. But then a week passed. The family did not come back. One week became two, became three, and if would have taken many more to convince Shadow if Queen Oa Ni-Col—Kara’s mother, whose independence of thought and outspoken nature had always been noted at court—had not made the unexpected decision to overcome a debilitating fear of heights in order to fling herself off her bedroom balcony into the mountains, hundreds of feet below.

“Batman,” Shadow tries again, “I realize you don’t care about the Els. That’s your right. But your actions will have an impact on more than just them if you’re not careful, and I won’t be able to mitigate the consequences of you being caught if I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Shadow’s voice is pitched lower than Kal’s. It rings clearer, too. This time it rises on the last few words though, pleading bleeding in at the edges, and for a moment Shadow almost fears he is about to be unmasked. What happens instead is a long silence before Batman eventually nods. Shadow has practice hiding his relief by now, and so his body language does not change. But the rush is still there, and it takes him a moment to realize Batman is staring at his helmet with almost frightening intensity.

He has rarely been this glad for the two-way mirror effect of his visor.

“I am not here to hurt anyone,” Batman says, sounding as if it is costing him some effort to reveal even that much. “But there is something strange about the Melokariel Proposition.” He pauses and then, even more reluctantly than before, finishes: “Whatever it is about.”

“He’s been investigating all this time and he does not know what it would do?” Kara exclaims on her end of the line. “What a—Kal, you have to keep him off the field!”

Shadow tends to agree, but to tell her so would be to reveal her to Batman, and he would rather avoid that as long as possible. The fewer people who know Shadow does not work alone, the safer Kara will stay.

“There is,” Shadow tells Batman, “and I’ll explain as soon as I can. I don’t have the time for it tonight—there are other things I need to do—but I’ll explain. All I ask in exchange is that you stay inside tonight, and wait for my instructions.”

“Does he look like he intends to cooperate?”

Batman’s shoulders have tightened. His neck stiffens and, by his side, the fingers of his right hand clench together. Shadow can’t tell Kara as much, but he suspects she has a fairly good idea as to the answer anyway. It is not, after all, that surprising. Batman has been too invested in this research, is too strong-willed to give up when someone asks him to. And if these were not indications enough, there is the matter of his obvious disdain for and disappointment with Kal-El’s lack of interest in politics. None of that speaks of Batman being able to let go of the topic.

Besides, Shadow thinks in a surprisingly detached, distant way, if even Batman does not think twice about Kal-El’s lack of knowledge after spending such an extended amount of time with him, no one else will. It is reassuring information to have, even if it will do nothing but fan the flames of Kal’s shame.

None of that, of course, makes the matter of Batman’s involvement with Krypton’s political issues any less of a problem...or a mystery.

“I mean it,” Shadow insists, hoping despite an increasingly loud sense of resignation that Batman will decide to surprise everyone and actually cooperate. “You don’t know enough about Krypton or the Proposition for this to end with anything other than you dead in a ditch.”

That is, after all, where Shadow would have ended up more than once, if not for the suit and Kara’s support. Batman, however, does not seem all that disposed to see it, and Shadow restrains himself from sighing. He steps onto the balcony railing instead, orders the suit to shift into its gliding form and, as soon as the batons on his back have melted into wings, jumps down and to the right, as if aiming for the more populous areas of the outer city.

“It is a good thing we never made you into a politician,” Kara says. “That went terribly.”

“I noticed, thank you,” Shadow says, the part of him that still belongs to Kal even while in the suit shriveling with humiliation.

“You are welcome. There is no improvement without feedback.”

Kal does not reply to that, too focused on his second-least-favorite part of gliding in the suit: the landing. The maneuver is tricky enough when he aims for a horizontal surface and has enough room to use a proper parachute—to land on the Citadel’s outer wall, with its near verticality and smooth surface is another exercise altogether, and he is never as grateful for the suit’s gripping claws as when he has to perform this specific operation.

“Almost no roll this time,” Kara teases, more good-natured than dismayed now. “You are getting good with this thing.”

“And here I thought not dying in it on the first try was already a sign of competence,” Shadow retorts.

Kara snorts at the quip and, Shadow is pretty sure, mutters something about him needing to be like this more often. He ignores it, used to that sort of remark by now, and makes his way back toward Batman’s balcony.

“You are panicking again.”

“I’m not.”

“Kal, this suit monitors your heartbeat.”

“I know,” Shadow retorts, “and I know I’m scared, but this is still not me panicking.”

Shadow, unlike Kal, does not panic. It would be a lie to say he is unaffected, of course, especially when the smallest slip could easily mean a death as gruesome as his aunt’s—and as Shadow, he has a better understanding of what that would be like than most. Nevertheless, he is not only still moving, but also in full possession of his wits. This is nothing close to panic.

“All right, then,” Kara concedes. “Are you nearly there? Distances are harder to judge on two dimensional displays.”

“I am,” Shadow says.

Down below, to Shadow’s complete lack of surprise, Batman is still standing on his balcony...or, more precisely, on the balcony’s railing. The moons shine overhead, irregular shadows casting Batman in dramatic shades of crimson and black as his cape flares out in the wind, jagged ends like daggers slicing the air. Kal watches the man’s ramrod-straight posture, the set of his shoulders, the angle of his neck as he surveys the western half of the outer city, and sighs.

“Is something the matter?” Kara asks.

“Nothing,” Shadow says.

Part of him wants to tell her she is not allowed to call him overdramatic again, but the thought feels bizarrely like a betrayal, and so he keeps it to himself. Besides, to speak his mind here would do nothing but spark a discussion they have already had a thousand times between them. No, it is not his fault Zod’s engineers conceived the suit as a body-tight armor. No, it is not his fault crimson is the best camouflage in El’s particularly clear nights, and no, it is not his fault the shape of his helmet—the only one he has found that allows for a clear panel of display beads while still protecting him—makes Shadow look like a vengeful bug. He knows it, and he knows Kara knows it. It prevents neither Kara teasing him about it every chance she gets, nor Kal feeling irrationally insecure about it. Deciding that silence is the better part of honor, Shadow keeps his mouth shut and focuses on not losing his grip on the wall instead.

“Does it look like he is about to leave?” Kara asks after a short pause. “Did he bring some sort of rope?”

“Nothing I can see, but he does seem to be bracing for a jump.”

“You can’t be serious,” Kara exclaims, her breathing disrupting the connection for one uncomfortable moment. “There is at least six thousand feet between that balcony and the city! He can’t possibly make that jump!”

“I’ve made it before,” Shadow points out, and is not surprised when Kara hisses:

“Against my advice! And you are wearing the best armor Krypton has to offer—what does Batman even have? A fancy cape.”

“I don’t know how he plans to survive the drop either. I mean, the nearest rooftops are only about two thousand feet away but—”

“That does not make the situation any better!”

Kara is making a fair point, here, but before Shadow can concede it, Batman takes a deep breath and, with one powerful push of his thighs, throws himself off the balcony. Shadow, heart rising in his throat, forces air back into his lungs even as he jumps off the wall, letting the suit rearrange the material of his wing to absorb the worst of the impact. He rolls to his feet in the same movement and runs up to the railing just in time to see Batman, cape extended into a makeshift glider that slows his descent, shoot some kind of line at a decorative beam below and a few feet in front of him.

A moment later, the line tenses. Batman’s entire silhouette—clearly meant to evoke a particular image—glides into a curved trajectory like a bird turning in the sky. From Shadow's vantage point, there is no sign Batman even considered the possibility of failure. He must have, just as he must have carefully considered the precise trajectory needed for this specific jump. Yet not an ounce of fear, or even hesitation, shows through in him, as if the men of Batman’s planet were always meant to move this way. Batman’s line shortens as he goes, bringing him into a curve short enough that it is easy—or looks easy—for him to let go of his handle on his line, flip in the air and, catching the beam with his gloved hand, right himself upon it as if on any regular floor.

The technique in itself is actually similar to Shadow’s own mode of travel in the city, though with very different tools. The elegance of it, however, the complete confidence Batman has in his own body and proprioception—Shadow, mouth and throat abruptly dry, swallows hard.

“He took the jump,” Kara says with a sigh, “didn’t he?”

“He did,” Shadow says, not surprised in the least by the way awe tinges his tone. “He looks fine.”

Better than fine, even, but Shadow doesn’t quite know how to describe the feeling that seized his heart and squeezed at his chest at the sight, has no idea what contracted his stomach in such a way. He takes a silent, fortifying breath rather than attempt the exercise and announces:

“I’ll follow him tonight. Let the Dark Sun know I won’t be able to make the run.”

“That’ll push the next ship back three days, at least,” Kara says, the frown easy to hear in her voice.

“I know, and I’m not happy about it either, but we need to know what his intentions are. I don’t think we’ll get a much better opportunity than this.”

“Fine,” Kara replies with an explosive sigh. “I will let them know. Switching to one way audio, now.”

Shadow thanks her for the courtesy even as his audio input clicks off. It is a silly superstition—or an impractical hangup, depending on the nature of his mood at the moment of description—of his that he cannot take complicated jumps while he can hear Kara talk, or breathe, or indeed make any noise at all. It is not her fault and, though Shadow knows the habit displeases her, it is not a true choice on his part, either.

Eight years he has been Shadow now, six with this suit, and even before that—when he had to climb down the entire service elevator shaft and then climb back up the roofs of the outer city—the slightest diversion of his attention would halt his first jump. There comes a point during the night, when he is focused enough—when he is Shadow enough—that silence is not such an absolute prerequisite. A point where he loses himself in his suit and his self-imposed mission, so deeply that he can ignore the distraction. But never for the first jump. Not while he steps away from the balcony railing, not when he briefly asks Rao not to let him fall. Not when he takes off at a running start, jumps up to the railing, and, using his momentum to add to the force of his jumps, gives a great push against the balcony railing, throwing himself into empty air and the sickening lurch of freefall.

It is not possible to shut off natural audio feedback from the helmet—not with the way Shadow programmed the suit, in any case—and so despite the slowing mechanism, similar in effect to Batman’s glider cape, the wind screams past his ears as the glittering lights of the outer city hurl themselves at him. There is just enough time for him to wonder if Batman, too, has to fight the gut-clenching fear that this time will be the one he misses and does not come back.

Then the moment to catch himself comes, and Shadow sets all thoughts of Batman aside. The extra material of his suit shoots forward, nanobots so attuned to Shadow’s needs they almost feel like a living thing, and with a similar curve to the one that caught Batman, Shadow lands hard on the decorative beam.

Now, to find Batman. The man is at least as comfortable swinging from roof to roof as Shadow is. It is also quite possible—almost certain, really, judging from what Shadow has seen—that Batman is much more at ease than he is with this exercise...which means the technical difficulty of any given path won’t be any help in determining whether Batman went that way or not.

Shadow allows himself a small sigh, surprised when Kara does not immediately ask what is wrong, and forces himself to think. There are two obvious routes from where Shadow stands: straight forward, going away from the Citadel wall and into the wealthier areas of the outer city; or backward, closer to the more impoverished neighborhoods. Going forward would be easier, for decorative cornices and railings become more numerous as the city goes on, and the lodgings there are easier to climb. At the very least, the risk of having those crumble underfoot is much lower than in the inner circle of the city, especially this far away from the Citadel’s main gates. Batman, however, has been researching the Melokariel Proposition for far too long to forget it now, and since as far as Shadow knows the project is almost exclusively discussed in terms of what it will do for noble families and noble pockets….Shadow starts toward the wall.

“Shad—damn it—Shadow do you hear me?”

Shadow grunts as he pulls himself on a curved roof, scanning his surroundings with one practiced sweep of his gaze. No trace of Batman, and now this.

“That’s the third time we've lost contact this week.”

“I am aware,” Kara sighs. “The vote has yet to be called, but Zor-El has allowed three different soundings already. Your installation is functional enough, but it cannot compete against that.”

Behind her, there is the low, regular buzz of a mechanical fan, and Shadow sighs. He does not have the technical skills to compete with his uncle’s police, let alone the Council’s Militia. He is...not quite incompetent, but he does not have it in him to make technological miracles. What he did have however, especially back when he first prepared himself to become Shadow, was a lot of time and unlimited access to ancient tomes on primitive technologies such as radio waves and binary coding. It took him quite a while and even more trial and error, but he did manage to build himself a central database no one on El would ever think to scan for, its near-prehistoric workings the very source of its secrecy. Later on, when Kara joined him as Support, she positively laughed at the setup, though Shadow could never quite figure out why she did.

In any case, the installation has worked well for them so far. There is no way to secure it against official forces’ technology, of course, but that is almost a non-problem in the sense that Shadow’s entire existence hinges on absolute secrecy and everything turning out as well as possible each and every night. Were he someone else—an independent Lord, perhaps, or a more ordinary citizen—there might be ways to justify the scrapes and bruises that come with his nocturnal life...but how do you explain serious injuries on someone who, like Kal-El, barely ever sets foot outside of his parents’ extremely secure residence, and even then almost exclusively to visit the extremely secure Stateroom of Peace? You do not. If Shadow makes one wrong move, every scrap of what little help he can bring to the citizens of El will be lost.

“I’ll look into alternative solutions,” he tells Kara. “Radio waves, maybe.”

Kara mutters something about sticks and stones, but Shadow ignores her. There, barely a dozen feet away from him, is Batman.

“I found him.”

The man has perched at the crumbling edge of a crumbling house’s domed roof, precariously balanced with a foot against the wall while the other rests on the rusted remains of an escape ladder that must have been abandoned for quite a while now. Batman seems unused to the architectural configuration, positioned in a way that will leave him much sorer than necessary come morning, but he seems steady enough all the same. Which explains why Shadow, seeing no reason to hurry, is only about halfway to Batman when they both hear the scream.

Altering his course, Shadow reaches the source of it a fraction of second before Batman does. A woman on the ground, a soldier’s gloved hand in her hair. Behind, three men: two armored, one screaming but otherwise paralyzed. In the distance, a window closes.

“Please, don’t take her!” shouts the man.

There is a wet crunch. He falls to the ground, clutching his nose. One of the armored men raises his weapon in the direction of the fallen man's head, aims—Batman falls on him from above, like Vohc himself descending from the stars. He is practiced, that much is clear. No hesitation. Not a single wasted move. He would win the fight in seconds if Ellon soldiers didn’t operate in groups of five.

Shadow jumps from his perch a second before the first soldier releases the woman and raises her rifle at Batman’s back. He runs. Jumps, suit extending on either side of him. Throws Batman to the ground when the impact shoves him backward.

“What was that?” Kara asks on her end of the line.

The suit must have fully reconnected, then.

Shadow does not answer her, though. He rolls to his feet—ducks a hit to the head, punches a second armored woman in the gut. Swords come out, and part of the suit turns into a familiar pair of batons. The blades shine and sing—miss Batman by inches in one corner of Shadow’s vision, spark against his suit in another. Shadow parries, ducks, strikes back. Rao, please let him get out of this alive. He is not good enough for this. There is a reason he prefers stealth, and—another duck. Close call, this time. He holds his ground, but only by virtue of having an extremely smart suit and very flexible weapons he has been using for the past eight years. Duck, duck, parry—shout in pain when a quicker sword strike catches him before he can have the suit rearrange itself, and slices his arm underneath. Parry again. One last strike, a solid kick in the shins—four soldiers leave in a profusion of curses, the fifth one unconscious on a comrade’s back.

Shadow allows himself three heaving breaths before he turns back to the people they just rescued. They have fallen to the ground, Batman standing guard while the man clings to his wife and babbles about someone left inside—children, Shadow realizes. He means children. Batman, much quicker on the uptake, is about halfway to the door when Shadow catches his wrist.

“We don’t have time—”

“You’re the better fighter,” Shadow hastens to explain. “If they come back before we can leave, you’ll be more useful here. Besides, the kids will know who I am.”

A small part of Shadow wants to grin when Batman’s impatient snarl turns to surprise, but the man was right. They do not have time for frivolity. Ignoring some pleased surprise of his own—he was halfway expecting Batman to argue against a plan that wasn’t his own—Shadow rushes inside. It is a mess, of course. The house was clearly ransacked for evidence. Broken furniture, papers strewn about with almost methodical madness. Nothing out of the ordinary, here. The soldiers made no mention of children, though, which means they must have hidden somewhere the police did not think to look at first glance. Either somewhere creative and complicated, or...Shadow crouches in front of the cabinet under the sink, and gives a soft greeting to the two little girls he finds there.

They have the same green eyes, the same wide rings under those eyes. The oldest one slaps his wrist when he reaches for them, and Shadow praises her for her bravery. Said bravery becomes a little less practical when he reaches for her and she tries to bite him, but these are harsh times for El, and so Shadow does not reprimand her.

“I’m not an enemy,” he says instead. “I am the Shadow of El. Your parents are waiting outside, and we need to go now, quietly.”

Miraculously, the children stay quiet as Shadow carries them outside. They all but fall over themselves when their father comes within reach, one of the girls almost falling to the ground in her hurry to reach familiar arms.

“Thank you,” the man tells Shadow between kisses to his daughters’ heads, “thank you so much!”

“Please, don’t. You’re not out of trouble yet.”

A few feet to the side, the woman looks between Batman and Shadow with a stony gaze, no trace of tears or fear on her face. She gives Batman a short, stoic nod before she goes to gather her family and tells them to brace themselves.

“The Shadow is right. We are still in danger, here. We need to leave.”

“I can help you with that,” Shadow says. “I know a place where people will help you.”

There is no scheduled convoy tonight but the Dark Sun, Shadow has learned, keeps shelters ready for families in transit, and these people will be safer there than anywhere else in the city. They can stay there and wait for the next departure to the deserted borders with Ul, and from there, to the stars and the safety of the Green Lanterns’ space territory. It is a good plan, but Shadow is not surprised to find both the woman and her companion eyeing Batman with undisguised wariness. Shadow cannot blame them. The citizens of El have learned to be wary of outsiders in recent years and a family suspected of treason—rightfully so, judging from their expressions and the traditional printing material Shadow saw inside—would be even warier.

Shadow cannot make a pleading face through his helmet, but Batman must pick something up from his body language because he nods, walks to the nearest rain pipe, and starts climbing. Shadow sighs.

“At least he is being cooperative,” Kara says, almost making him jump.

She was so quiet throughout the fight, he somehow managed to forget she was there at all. Or perhaps he simply didn’t hear her. Either way, her voice is a comfort, and Shadow feels his shoulders unwind a little as he tells Batman, “I’ll see you where we first met.”

He waits for Batman to turn around and look at him before he jerks his head to the left, away from the Citadel dome. Batman’s answering nod is curt and small, but it is a sufficiently explicit agreement for Shadow to settle further. He listens to the click of Batman’s boots on the rain pipe for a while, giving the family some space to organize themselves. Then, once the man has gone back inside for what looks like a long-ready travel bag, Shadow leads them to one of the Dark Sun’s safe houses.

“Is there any sign that they intend to pursue you?” Kara asks a few hours later when Shadow comes back to the house.

The place is buzzing with activity, but there is no sense of victory in the air, no feeling of a pack on the hunt.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “It doesn’t seem like they found anything on the Dark Sun, either. We got lucky.”

“That you were,” Kara replies hotly. “I don’t know how we missed that raid—”

“I’ll go by our informant’s house before I come back,” Shadow promises.

They are supposed to have this neighborhood covered, after all. This did not feel like a scheduled raid—not enough coordination for the soldiers to be an official team-up—but if there are overzealous rogue elements in the city’s police, their contact will need to know about them. And if, for some unfathomable reason, the authorities decided to send a newly minted team on a scheduled raid—improbable, but still not to be discounted—it is vital for Shadow and the Dark Sun to figure out how that could have passed them by.

“I will contact whoever I can,” Kara says. “In the meantime, you should go and give your friend a good telling-off.”

Shadow, already on his way over the rooftops, does not answer...but he does not miss the frown in Kara’s voice when she speaks again.

“Kal—”

“I’m glad to know the line is uncompromised.”

Not that it would do them much good, should anyone start scanning for audio frequencies, but it is always reassuring to know they are not being listened to.

“Kal,” Kara insists, “you are going to tell him off, aren’t you?”

“I’ll talk to him,” Shadow hedges. Kara’s grunt is more than enough to let him know what she thinks of that. “I know what he did was risky—”

“Risky? If anyone recognizes him—”

“He was trying to save those people!” Shadow protests, feeling his voice rise into a more Kal-esque register despite himself. “You can’t blame him for that!”

“I recognize that he had noble intentions,” Kara says, “but that does not excuse his recklessness. You have got to talk to him, Kal.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Shadow repeats.

Kara does much more grumbling than usual when she signs out.

Once Shadow finds Batman again, he wastes neither time nor words and strides toward the mountains with Batman close on his heels. The alien is physically fit, impressively so by Ellon standards, but Shadow is surprised to hear his breathing grow heavier after the first half hour. Whatever Batman does on his planet must not include much trekking, then. He does not complain, however, and about half an hour later they are both standing at the darkened mouth of a narrow crevice of jagged rocks. To the left, the Citadel glows a pale red in the moonlight, the outer city swallowing its feet in a mass of inky darkness that not even the light of the moons, so bright in the mountains, can penetrate.

Shadows orders the suit to rearrange one of his gloves into a flashlight and, once Batman has caught his breath—a short process, despite his insistence on maintaining proper posture and sacrificing practicality for dignity—he steps inside the crevice. Inside, it gets narrower for a while, the stone above low enough to force him to duck. At one point, he hears Batman’s head hit the stone and smirks. When they reach the first chamber—quite small, compared to what comes after, but still just wide enough for two adults to camp in—Shadow stops.

“Where are we?” Batman asks, sitting down while Shadow detaches the flashlight from his suit and settles it on the ground. “Your base of operations?”

“I wish,” Kara mutters, the connection clicking back to life in Shadow’s ears.

“One day, it might be,” Shadow tells Batman, perhaps more of a smile in his voice than he meant to put there. “For now, it’s just a cave I found when I was a kid.”

It would be a lie to say that he was less timid back then, but his parents had insisted he see the outside world, and later on his martial arts instructors had declared it good for his health to run around the mountains. In between, Kal explored. And scared a few adults in the process, but that is hardly the point.

“It’s not very interesting, geologically speaking, but it does offer some privacy.”

Batman hums, and Kara clicks her tongue.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Right,” Shadow says, and winces internally when Batman cocks his head at him. “I almost forgot,” he covers, “I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank him?”

“Thank me?”

“For stepping in, earlier. You didn’t have to.”

“Kal, this is not what we said—”

“It was reckless,” Batman says before Shadow can debate whether he should ask Kara to let him speak. “But armed men dragging a woman by the hair in the middle of the night is not a good sign, back on Earth.”

“It isn’t a good sign here either,” Shadow sighs, “but this isn’t your planet. No one would have resented you for staying out of this.”

“I would have.”

The words carry a kind of life-defining finality that makes Kara hum and Shadow bow his head. They both know the feeling, after all. It would be hypocritical of them to contradict Batman on that point, even should they want to.

“Well,” Shadow says at last, “thank you anyway. If you hadn’t helped—”

“I am usually more on the punitive side of things,” Batman says.

It is not hurried, not urgent...and yet Shadow cannot help the feeling it is meant as a dismissal somehow. Specifically timed to make sure Shadow could not finish his sentence.

“In that case,” he says rather than force his way through the rest of his intended words, “you did well, for someone outside of their comfort zone.”

Shadow grins under his helmet, unable to help himself. His only responses are the warmth of his own breath on his face and Batman’s expression remaining so immobile as to make Shadow doubt the exchange even happened, but he is glad he said it all the same. Shadow’s belief in telling people when they've done well might be primarily a result of Kal’s needs, but that does not make it any less strong, nor is it dependent on Batman acknowledging the compliment. Not that Shadow would have complained if he had, but to each their own.

“Though to be honest, sometimes I wonder if a punitive figure wouldn’t be more useful around here.”

Shadow...tries to be one, sometimes. Well. He tried. Nothing short of a solid beating seems to deter militia members, though, and that is simply not something Shadow is truly capable of delivering. It is not a matter of training, although he is definitely lacking in that area. No; the truth is, for all that Shadow plays at being strong it is just that: a play. An illusion cast on the people who meet him to help things go the way he wants them to. But in his heart of hearts, Shadow, much like Kal, does not have it in himself to rise to the level of violence the militia is ready to use. He does become violent, sometimes, when no other options remain. He does. He also spends a significant amount of time retching, afterwards, and so he avoids physical confrontation as much as he can.

Batman’s gaze on him pulls Shadow off that particular train of thought. The blank whited-out lenses of the man’s cowl have fixed on his face—or his helmet, rather—as if they can somehow divine his secrets through the power of staring alone. Shadow is not sure what it says about him that he finds himself fearing they might succeed.

The silence stretches between them, darkness shivering with the faint echo of their voices. There is a sense of anticipation in the air. Not quite an antsy silence—although Shadow is definitely getting there—but somehow expectant, all the same. It is as though Batman, immobile as he is, manages to project the sense of waiting for more. Of waiting out someone’s nerve, to discover what they want, and Shadow….

“You are about to cave in, aren’t you?” Kara sighs in his ears.

He ignores her, out of necessity as much as personal preference.

“They want to mine the planet’s core,” he tells Batman. “That’s what the Melokariel Proposition is about. The expectation is that this will revive the entire planetary economy and bring some life back into what’s essentially—”

“A decaying former colonial power incapable of accepting its lack of relevance in the modern universe.”

Well. So much for thinking Batman would be delicate about this.

“It is,” Shadow admits nonetheless. “The Independence War’s been over for more than seven hundred years now, yet most of our nobility still acts like that was yesterday. The Wise Council is even worse. There are even people who hope the Melokariel Proposition will help Krypton reestablish its dominion over the galaxy.”

“Only because they have no more sense than tchkay plant,” Kara mutters.

“It may not sound like it,” Shadow tells Batman, trying not to let his helpless grin bleed into his tone, “but El is actually one of the more moderate Principalities.”

“And yet your king is accepting quite a lot of bribes, in the form of gifts.”

“On behalf of his father,” Shadow says. “Kor-El is the Wise King of Thinkers, and he tends to vote with Tsiahm-Lo because they are old friends. People think winning one of their votes means winning the other...but you can’t gift anything to the Wise Kings and Queens directly. It’s against the Council laws. So people work around it. There’s been an increase in the number of gifts Tsiahm-Lo’s family receives, too.”

It took quite a while, confirming that last information. Kor-El lives primarily in Kandor and is hard to meet, even for his closest relative. As for Tsiahm-Lo, he lives on the other side of the planet. Kara has contacts in many places, however, and Kal’s clumsiness is often more helpful than one might think, genuine though it is. The proof, when it came, was a hard blow for Shadow and Support both. Batman, however, takes the news quite well. He has, of course, proven his ability to remain stoic in most circumstances several times over, by now, but the demonstration is no less impressive for it, and Shadow holds in a sigh. What he would not give, for that kind of mastery of himself!

He wondered, once, whether Earthlings were simply much less emotional creatures than Kryptonians. Not every sentient species is created equal where sentiment is concerned, after all. Batman was too kind to Kal, though, and for too long, for it to be faked. Mastery it must be, then, and Shadow can only admire it, knowing he will never be able to grasp it for himself.

“That explains Zor’s remarks,” Batman mutters to himself. Then, a little louder: “What about the Green Lanterns? Why do they have that kind of reputation?”

“You said it yourself,” Shadow explains with a shrug. “Krypton is a decaying ex-colonizer that can’t accept times have changed, and the Lanterns were the ones who beat them. That would be bad enough by itself, but now they’re taking Kryptonian refugees under their protection….”

“And Krypton does not pursue?”

The way Batman asks the question makes it feel like he might already know—or strongly suspect—what the answer is, but Shadow answers anyway:

“The Peace Treaty we signed after the war doesn’t allow them to. Once the refugees are within the Lanterns’ space territory, they’re out of reach.”

“If I did not know you so well,” Kara remarks in Shadow’s ears, “I might believe this history lesson will finish with ‘and that is why you must remain uninvolved’. But you are going to let him keep going with his investigation, aren’t you?”

“I would say you are putting too much faith in that treaty,” Batman says, voice overlapping with Kara’s, “but if your government is already too proud to increase commerce with its ex-colonies when the planet is literally dying, assuming they will be too proud to ask for permission to go and catch their own traitors does not seem that far-fetched.”

Shadow nods. The words are not quite those he would have chosen to explain the situation, but they are accurate enough. It would be futile to dispute them.

“Our main difficulty here is to help those who need to flee to join the escape networks. After that, I’m told things become easier.”

“I take it you are not privy to that part of the operation.”

Shadow shakes his head. “It’s safer if we don’t know too much about the things we’re not directly involved in,” he says. “Besides, the Shadow of El is more useful in the city.”

Batman does not ask any questions, but Shadow knows what he said calls for an explanation all the same...and even if it did not, he is not hoping for Batman to remain uninvolved anymore. This means he will need information, and, well. The story of the Dark Sun and its Shadow is nothing the general public does not know. Even Kara does not protest the decision, though she does remind Shadow he only has about three hours left until the sun rises.

“So what I hear,” Batman says once Shadow is done with this retelling, “is that you are alone in ensuring those who need the Dark Sun can find them safely.”

“Yes,” Shadow says, and winces when Kara yelps in protest. “More or less.”

“Thank you,” Kara says. “’Alone’...what am I, chopped silten?”

Batman seems to ponder the answer for a moment, head bowed over Shadow’s makeshift flashlight. At the mouth of their hiding place, the sky is still dark, but it will not remain so for much longer. Shadow breaks the silence:

“To tell you the truth...I could use your help.”

Batman looks up, sharp and fast, and Shadow makes himself keep his shoulders straight. If nothing else, he will at least be able to tell Kara, truthfully, that he offered a partnership rather than begging for help.

“It seems pretty clear you won’t let go of your investigation, but you know nothing about Krypton—”

“Almost nothing,” Batman corrects. “Kal-El is a fool, but he is not entirely incompetent.”

“You really are not going to defend yourself at all, are you?” Kara sighs, but Shadow only swallows.

It is, he tells himself again, a good thing that Batman thinks so little of Kal. Less risk of discovery, this way. With that in mind, Shadow nods, conceding.

“My point is, you could work on your own, but that would take more time than you’d like. And besides, it would be a waste of energy when we could just as well pool our resources.”

“It sounds to me like I would be the one with the most to gain from that,” Batman says. “More information, more material, a better knowledge of the local culture...what do you get from it?”

“You’re a better fighter than me,” Shadow says, matter-of-fact. “And clearly you’re a skilled detective, or you wouldn’t have progressed as far as you have with a limited Ellon vocabulary. Clearly, there’s a lot you could teach me...and when this is done, the Dark Sun will help you leave.”

Batman and Kara hum at the same time, although not for the same reasons at all.

“I need time to think this over,” Batman says at last, and Shadow nods.

“Fine. But not tonight—dawn’s coming, and there’s something else I have to do before then. Let’s meet here tomorrow night. Two hours after sundown.”

“Very well.”

Together, they walk back to the entrance of the cave, where the crimson glow of the moons is paling, slowly bleeding out of the sky to give way to the orange copper of daylight. Shadow pauses to admire the sight of the mountains to the east, and when he turns back, Batman is gone.

With a grin at the alien’s flair for the dramatic, Shadow shakes his head and strides back toward the city. He does, after all, have a militia lieutenant to call on.

The next night, Shadow arrives at the crevice in the mountain only to find Batman already there, standing at the entrance with his head raised to the sky, the dim light of the moons turning his mouth and chin almost copper. He does not flinch, or indeed react in any way when Shadow steps up beside him, except to say:

“There is conflict between two of your neighboring planets. Leaark and Axor. They wanted an impartial judge, so they asked for our help. I was on my way back when I crashed on Krypton.”

“’Our’ help?” Shadow asks, puzzled. “Is your planet known for its good judgment?”

Kal knows that it is not. Shadow, however, has heard nothing of this place, and must therefore show interest in Batman’s past if he wishes to make use of that knowledge.

“No. Earth does not have political representatives in space. We do have….” Batman’s voice trails off for a moment, as if he were hesitating. The thought is incongruous, knowing what Shadow knows about him, but hesitation it must be, because Batman sounds rather reluctant when he says: “We have a group of superheroes whose reputation reaches beyond the borders of Earth. They are called the Justice League.”

Shadow blinks.

“Isn’t that a good thing? To have so many heroes dedicated to the protection of your people and the defense of justice among them?”

“There are only seven of us, actually. And the name sounds—ridiculous.”

‘Ridiculous’ is, most likely, not what Batman would have said in his mother tongue. Something worse, perhaps? Either way, the sentence leaves him frustrated, the slant of his shoulders familiar from many a language lesson. Shadow smiles at the sight, but takes care to push it out of his voice before he says, “A lot of people here would find it ridiculous, too. I think it sounds quite noble. I’d be glad if Krypton could have something like that.”

Batman looks at him again, lips pinched tightly together, but Shadow does not move. Shadow and Kal-El are very different—for all that they share a body and a mind—but their values are the same, and neither one would be ashamed to admit as much. Batman may find the concept, in its nakedness, to be ridiculous, but Shadow would argue perhaps the problem lies in him rather than in his League’s name itself.

“Mm,” Batman says, rather than answer Shadow’s question. As deflections go, it is far from his best; strangely, Shadow appreciates it all the more for that. “I have given some thought to your offer.”

Now Shadow’s heart picks up, anticipation tingling in the creases of his palms as he waits out Batman’s dramatic pause with bated breath. Eventually, just as Shadow is considering breaking the silence himself, Batman says:

“I find it acceptable. I will help you train and deal with the Melokariel Proposition. And when I ask you to, you will help me leave Krypton, whether this business is finished or not.”

“Of course,” Shadow says.

Kara, he suspects, will strongly disapprove. What good is it, to involve a man who might choose to leave next week? But Batman could have demanded to be let off Krypton right away, and he has not. He would have had every right to it, after more than three months so far from his home. Yet, despite that, he chose to stay on and help. It would be more than unfair for Shadow to ask more of him than that, and so what he does instead is bow his head and say:

“Thank you. I’m looking forward to our cooperation.”

“You might yet live to regret it,” Batman says. “Do you have somewhere we can use to train you?”

“Yes, actually,” Shadow says with a grin. “It’s the reason why I wanted us to meet here. Come with me.”

They make their way back inside the crevice and then further into the mountain, until they reach the first truly significant cave. Their footsteps echo there, every noise magnified until even the small drizzle of water at the back sounds like a river. The space is quite wide, almost large enough to contain Kal-El’s bedroom—far more than they will need to setup sparring mats and physical training equipment. The ceiling is not very high, but it is comfortable enough, and when Shadow’s flashlight touches it the crystals embedded there come alive with cold white flashes.

“This seems acceptable,” Batman says. “From what little I can see.”

“I thought you’d say that,” Shadow replies with a smile. “Just a moment, please.”

It was, perhaps, a tad overdramatic of him to hide the fire figs under a blanket. The effect when he uncovers their glass cases is so magnificent, though, that he feels no guilt about it. He brought only four bushes, but their light is enough to reflect and refract in the overhead crystals and fill the cave with multicolored beams of light, along with a softer and more natural orange glow. White lights will have to be brought in later on, as supplements, but for now this light is enough, and Shadow smiles when he realizes even Batman’s jaw has gone a little slack.

“What do you think?” he asks.

Batman swallows.

“It is...adequate,” he says.

Shadow chuckles.

“Well. Let’s get started, then.”

“If you feel ready.”

All jokes about Batman’s flair for the dramatic aside, he does display a level of intensity even Shadow was wholly unprepared for. For the three hours following his and Batman’s agreement, Shadow does nothing but jump, run, crouch, and crawl all over the floor. Sweat pours out of every pore he has, chafes at his skin under the suit, and by the time Batman is done with him, his limbs feel ready to drop him to the ground at any moment. When he requests a break, he barely even waits for Batman’s permission before he kneels next to the thin stream at the back of the cave and lets the bottom half of his helmet melt away into the rest of the suit, drinking his fill and then some without, somehow, managing to feel like his thirst is quenched.

“I thought you were ready,” Batman says when Shadow is done drinking and back to panting.

There is no apology in the man’s voice, not even an ounce of regret, but Shadow hears the disappointment loud and clear. His fists clench.

“Clearly,” he says, struggling to keep his voice even, “I miscalculated.”

He shouldn’t have. He has seen enough of Batman, by now, to know better. He should have anticipated the hard work, and more—and to tell the truth, he should have been better prepared regardless. The Shadow of El should not let itself be stopped by something so mundane as lack of endurance, and in the privacy of his own mind, Shadow resolves to do better next time. After all, if Batman can do it, why should Shadow not even attempt it?

“How have you even survived all this time?” Batman asks.

The disappointment is gone from his tone now, his voice back to perfect neutrality. Shadow, who has not been naive enough to imagine a neutral tone meant neutral feeling for a long time, asks himself the same question. The suit is many things, after all, but magic is not one of them, and if this training session has proven anything, it is that Shadow must have been much luckier than he had ever thought...that, and that he was right in deciding never to discard the suit for his patrols.

“I’m usually more of a spy than a vigilante,” he tells Batman, breathing still ragged.

He manages, just barely, to keep the apology out of his voice. It does not do much for the blooming sense of inadequacy at the pit of his stomach, but it does preserve the dignity of the Shadow of El. Besides, he is starting to suspect that to apologize for his shortcomings, at this point, would accomplish nothing but driving Batman to push him even harder. Not that it would not be useful! There is, after all, a reason Shadow suggested this partnership in the first place, and contrary to what Batman seems to think, Shadow is fully convinced he is the one who has the most to gain from this endeavor. Batman has full access to the royal library, after all, and Shadow is starting to suspect he could have found his own way back to Earth, given enough time.

Fighting is simply not something one can properly learn on their own.

“Focusing on information-gathering,” Batman is saying, as Shadow returns to his feet, nanobots reshaping into his helmet just in time to hide the last of his chin as he turns back around, “does not mean you can afford to be useless in a fight. Your suit may do a number of amazing things, but it is still nothing but a suit, and you cannot afford to rely on it. You must be able to defend yourself, even if you are caught without it.”

Shadow, feeling like a child scolded for failing to put enough effort into his homework, resists both the urge to protest that he is always wearing his suit—as it is both beside the point and a piece of information best kept between Kara and himself—and the urge to bow his head. There is no time to be self-pitying. He is here to learn, after all. That means taking whatever Batman has to throw at him, and using it to grow. If it also means Shadow must go through more physical drills in the upcoming weeks than he has in his entire life up until now, then so be it.

“Just be careful who you share this with,” Kara teases when Shadow recounts his first training session later in the night, on his way to pick a family up from their home and lead them to the nearest safehouse. “There would be no explanation for your sudden transformation into a high-level athlete.”

Not, of course, that she truly has to worry about that. The only person Kal-El could ever talk to about his progress in martial arts would be Batman, and Batman does not want anything to do with him. Shadow bites down on a peevish retort anyway.

Shadow...keeps up, somehow. He trains with Batman for three hours every evening and emerges from the cave, exhausted and drenched in his own sweat, only to go around the city, gathering intelligence on the militia’s movements, interrogating whoever he can with Batman’s help—and oh, how these conversations go faster with someone who is actually skilled at drawing answers out of reluctant participants!—and leading more and more prospective refugees to the Dark Sun’s safe houses. The Melokariel Proposition was voted into effect three weeks ago, precisely three and a half months after Batman’s arrival on Krypton, and Batman's failure to publicly involve himself one way or the other in that controversy has mostly silenced those at court who whispered that he might be an envoy of Vohc. He almost snorted, when Kal related this news, and chuckled when he shared that tidbit with Shadow later the same day.

Of all the things collaborating with Batman has changed in Shadow's life, receiving regular updates on his own life from an external perspective is, without contest, the strangest. He knows how to deal with being interrogated, both as Shadow and as Kal. Hearing himself described on a semi-regular basis is another thing entirely.

Mostly, though, Shadow struggles. He gains muscle, but loses weight. He fights better, stands straighter in the night. But when daylight comes and he turns the suit back into Kal-El’s lab coats and refined fabrics, his shoulders slouch further than they ever have in his life. It is...fine, at first. Exhausting, yes, but important, and Shadow—he keeps up. He manages. Not brilliantly, maybe, but efficiently, and who cares if Kal suffers for it? Certainly not Batman, and certainly not Shadow. For the first six weeks after Batman started to train him, Shadow manages.

After that, though, the training starts to take its toll. Shadow feels it in his bones, perceives it in the tightness around Batman’s mouth, a sense of defeat hovering around the alien in a way it never has before, in all four and a half months he has been on Krypton. For a while, Shadow tries to believe Kara and entertain the thought that Batman might, perhaps, simply be homesick...but if it were only that, then why not simply ask to go? Or, at the very least, go to Kal, whose eagerness to learn more about Batman’s home planet could not be more pathetically obvious if he tried? No, all the evidence points to Shadow himself being the source of Batman's displeasure.

Gradually, the giddiness he had felt over this arrangement—the beauty of all the things he would learn to do, and do better—fades. Shadow goes through the motions of his and Kal-El’s lives on autopilot, faced with the bitter realization that even he is not enough. There is nothing there—a sham, at the most; an illusion the people of El cling to well past the time it should have been cast aside, merely because there is nothing else to count on. Because they have put too much faith in it, by now, to turn back without consigning themselves to a life of shame. There is nothing there except the thin ghost of a wish, an ideal that could be put to better use by better hands.

Batman could do it. He does not say as much, and speaks little of his own work on Earth to Shadow—but Kal is a timid fool, and there is no danger in sharing secrets with him. Batman could do it; but Shadow cannot, and so he applies himself to helping Batman as best as he can...or, failing that, to making sure he does not hinder the man’s work, at least.

Together, they infiltrate houses and places Shadow would never have dared to take on alone. They scare Kara half to death—or rather, Shadow does. He has yet to reveal her existence to Batman; part of him is still wary of the consequences should someone else find out about her, and another part is disturbingly unwilling to let Batman know he is being observed, when Shadow knows the alien would retreat even more than he already does if he were aware of it. Shadow is unpracticed, at first, and then he is tired and stumbles where he needs to be sure-footed. He muddles through the thick fog of his brain, when he should be sharp and alert, and blinks himself from the brink during patrol.

They are few, these moments, and far between at first. It is like...like Shadow detaches from himself, somehow. Like his soul remains trapped in his head, while the rest of his body moves on with life, a puppet made of empty, mechanical parts, until these divided pieces of him finally reunite in the sweetness of oblivion. These moments, few and far between—until, somehow, they aren’t.

Time numbs Shadow to his own purpose. Caring becomes harder. It takes more effort than it used to, to fear for the people he helps, to mourn for those he loses. It is not so much that they are not important, but rather—rather that everything is important. Stopping the violent expulsion of citizens is important. Gathering evidence of the corruption that led to this predicament is important. Helping those willing to do the work to inform the rest of El of the dangers of mining Krypton’s core is important. Everything is important; everything claws at Shadow’s attention, pulling at his soul until it all blurs into a thick feeling of guilt for his inability to care more...and then Shadow shuts down.

He does not mean to do it. Does not plan to sit at his desk, and blink so slowly two hours have gone by before he opens his eyes again and picks up his pen. He does not mean for Kal to lie on his bed in the morning and think he should go and wash himself, feed himself, read—turn his head away from the ceiling, at the very least, but even that proves beyond his strength, and so Kal-and-Shadow both remain where they are and let time pass them by. Neither part of him means for that to happen, the space where they meet horrified and desperate to stop it, to move, to do anything but—anything at all. But that space where Shadow and Kal-El meet is a sad thing, shriveled and pitiful, and while the days it manages to take over do not, at least, feel like they are spent watching fresh paint dry, they are the kind of days that make both Kal and Shadow regret the numbness.

That part of Shadow—that small, terrified part of him that makes even Kal sound...functional, somehow—wonders with despair how far it will all go. What it will take to wake him up, even just a part of him. It watches as Shadow-and-Kal go through the motions, present but not. He-they go through the motions—must perform with some success, seeing as no one thinks to ask what is wrong with them. Him. Inside, though, it feels more and more like Shadow—like Kal, like both of him—is trying and failing to pry a locked door open with his bare hands. He sleeps. He does what he must at night and during the day, protecting those who count on him and attending what official occasions he is expected to. He does forget to eat, now and then, if nothing pressing requires him to make sure he has some sustenance. It is not a problem.

Or, to be precise: it is not a problem, until Kal faints in the royal family’s private library. He does not mean to faint, much like he has not meant to do many other things. One minute he is looking for a book, somewhat lightheaded, and telling himself he will go lie down as soon as he finds what he needs to prepare for Batman’s Ellon lessons, and the next something deep and dark opens behind his eyes, pulls him down—he blinks, and has to think hard for a minute or two before he realizes the reason that particular green velvet loveseat looks so strange is because it is not meant to be seen with one’s head lying on the ground.

There is a low sound in Shadow—no, Kal. There is no red at his wrist, no warm moisture on his face. He is meant to be Kal. It is just as well. He pushes himself up on his wrists nonetheless, surprised when something on his shoulder forces him back to the ground.

“Stop trying to get up, you imbecile,” a low, rough voice is saying, close to his head, when he manages to recognize words again. “Lie down.”

Kal blinks, head spinning again even as he tries to figure out whether anyone else was present when he—blinked? Fell? It is hard to tell. He remembers where he was before, but it is difficult to understand how he came to be where he is now...wherever that is, exactly. To make sense of what he hears, right now, is beyond his ability. Not that it truly matters, in the end, for before Kal can truly understand what he is being told, a strong pair of arms seizes him under the armpits, lifts him up off the ground—Kal is on a sofa. The green loveseat is nearby, cozy but too small to lie down on in full. Kal closes his eyes, opens them again and focuses on the ceiling when the abyss inside him turns out to be much closer than he thought it would be. He does not try to sit up.

“I called for honeyed tea,” Batman-in-his-Nightwing-suit says when Kal finally manages to find his face. “You need sugar.”

It is quite probable Kal actually does need that. From the feel of things, though, he also needs some ice for his head and a thousand years of sleep. Better yet: he needs to go to bed, and never wake up at all. It is a tempting thought. Burying himself under the covers, forgetting there is a world outside...but that would not be acceptable, of course, for a prince of El. Not even for the pathetic offspring of a lower branch. So what Kal does instead is apologize, squinting when it becomes clear Batman did not understand him.

“I am so sorry,” Kal repeats, to no better result. “Your lesson….”

It takes Kal tremendous effort, to seize control of his own mouth again and force the words into some semblance of shape, but he manages. This time, Batman understands. He does not...scoff. Not truly. He does not roll his eyes either, although a part of Kal is acutely aware that the cowl makes it terribly hard to be certain of that. Besides, the man’s stoic silence gives the strong impression that, though he considers himself too dignified to roll his eyes, a significant part of him wants to. That prompts Kal to apologize again, only for Batman’s mouth to pull downward.

“Do not apologize,” he says, laying a gloved hand on Kal’s clammy forehead. “These lessons are not life-or-death anymore.”

Kal, whose throat and chest feel like someone is trying to squeeze them into some terribly undersized container, manages to keep a hold of himself long enough to say:

“You are right. I suppose you do not need me anymore.”

He remains conscious just long enough to take his tea before sinking into a long-needed nap. In his dreams, Batman stays by his side—brings him water when he wakes up, and pushes the hair out of his eyes as he sinks back into sleep—but when he wakes up, this time in his bedroom, there is no sign that he has been anything but alone.

Shadow groans when Batman pulls him, none too gently, to his feet. He is not, thankfully, dizzy enough to have trouble standing, although it certainly did not help him during the fight. Part of it might be that Shadow has yet to grow used to how much fighting they have to do, these days. It has been six weeks, now, since the Melokariel Proposition was adopted. Five months, almost to the day, since Batman landed on Krypton. Why he remains, Kal has no idea, but he does carry the knowledge of how invaluable Batman’s help is on his shoulders and in his guts, every day.

Barely a night passes, now, without them having to put themselves between people who refused to sell their homes to the first mining companies and those who would intimidate them into leaving. Desperate men and women left everything they had in poorer Principalities to come and work in El, where, they were told, life would be easy and plentiful—and where they are instead welcomed with insults, closed doors, and employers who could not care less what happens to the lowest layers of Krypton’s social strata. Farmers on the outskirts of the city are losing cattle, the noise and dust of the first mining shafts stressing the animals too much for them to remain productive; not to mention the sudden influx of Ellon citizens who can no longer live around the Citadel but still can’t, or won’t, attempt to make their way in exile. All around the Principality, the consequences of the Melokariel Proposition are already proving disastrous, and the only people who seem to care are either unable to act directly, like Kara, or pathetically, impossibly outnumbered, like Shadow and Batman.

Every morning, Shadow comes home with new bruises, new cramps. He sinks into exhaustion and numbness for the rest of the day, and struggles harder and harder to exit itwith every night that passes...he is, overall, not very surprised that the intimidating line of Batman’s mouth seems distinctly chilly tonight. He did not wait to see as much before beginning a familiar litany of self-recriminations, of course. He is, after all, perfectly aware of all that he is doing wrong—perfectly aware of what would have become of that woman, if he’d failed to keep the Kandori soldiers away from her. He is also perfectly aware of what would happen to him, should he fall into their hands, although that at least he could live with. Metaphorically speaking.

The overarching point of all of this is: Batman is unhappy. So is Shadow. How could he not be? He sees what he is doing wrong—how woefully short he falls of upholding the simple standard of making himself useful to the people around him. What is the point of there even being a Shadow, if all he does is add to the mess? What is the point of pretending, of forcing Kal into an ever deeper isolation, if Shadow cannot even accomplish the one thing he has ever truly tried do for his people?

“What in the — is wrong with you?” Batman hisses as he all but drags Shadow away from the safe house they left their rescue in, the foreign word strange and yet perfectly understandable to Shadow’s mind.

Shadow could give Batman a long list, a _very_ long list, of the things that are wrong with him. Long enough to fill the whole trek to their cave in the mountains, and then the rest of the night after that, but they do not have that kind of time. To be honest, Shadow does not have that kind of strength, either. The honest, ugly truth of it is: he is barely even surprised. There had to come a time when he couldn’t fool himself anymore, let alone the people around him. The thought bows his head even as he follows Batman out of the city and into the jagged mountains around them, half his energy focused on putting one foot in front of the other and the other half spent on keeping his spine straight enough to avoid tipping his red suit over the line from majestic to clownlike.

“Shadow,” Batman says again, sterner this time.

Shadow draws a breath in.

“I think I was right, you know. That first night. You’re much better suited for this than I am.”

They have reached the outskirts of the city by now, sharp boulders surrounding them in ever closer ranks as they stride through the mountains. Batman has grown used to the trek in the past few weeks, and he does not trail behind like he did on that first night; but he does leave a step or two between Shadow and himself, and that is something for Shadow to be grateful for. The peace does nothing to soften the silence, though, and with silence comes an ever-lengthening list of things Shadow should have learned by now—should know how to do better, faster. It is a list Kal has been very familiar with for many years, but it is the first time Shadow has had to go through this painful a reading of it, and so he tries to keep it at bay by saying:

“Perhaps Kal-El was right in his description of you. You do seem like you could be Nightwing come again.”

Batman snorts, but there is no humor in it, and he does not wait for the palm of Shadow’s suit to turn into a flashlight before he steps into the crevice under the mountain.

“I know,” Shadow says as he hurries to keep up, “Kal-El is an imbecile, but—”

“Kal-El is looking for meaning where there is none,” Batman interrupts. “He thinks if I am Nightwing come again, I will lead him out of his miserable existence somehow. He is wrong, and you need to get a hold of yourself now, before you start believing the same things.”

He steps into the cave with an angry gesture, the curtain they installed to keep the light in rattling in protest at his abruptness.

“I didn’t mean—“ Shadow starts, but Batman cuts him off in a hiss.

“You nearly destroyed that operation. You cannot slip up like that again.”

It takes a few seconds before Shadow finds it in himself to nod, chastised. He has no excuse for it, he knows, no way to explain his actions except sheer incompetence. He knows—has known since he saw Batman leap off the Citadel—what a true hero should look like. What standards Shadow must be held to, before he can be said to fulfill his purpose. He has tried to meet those standards—he has. But he has fallen woefully short, and it is, perhaps, time he faced the facts and did the last helpful thing he can think of: retire.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

The words sound strange in Shadow’s lower, harsher register. Apologizing does not fit the image of him any more than it would fit Batman. Who would fear someone who apologizes, after all? And isn’t that what Shadow is meant to do? Strike fear into the hearts of those who would harm the people Shadow is meant to protect?

No. It never truly worked like that. No one ever flinched from him the way they flinch from Batman—or Nightwing, as some have called him, no matter how much he dislikes the connection. There was a time when Shadow—when Kal himself, hidden far inside his own heart—could pretend that it worked. Could tell himself he was doing what he was meant to...but perhaps it is best, now, that he finally let go of his illusions. That he start making his decisions with a clearer head. A sounder mind. It is what is best, for everyone.

“Don’t be sorry,” Batman tells him from where he went to crouch beside the little stream, tone far gentler than Shadow deserves. “Be better.”

“But how?”

That...was not meant to come out of Shadow’s mouth. Not where anyone could hear it, at the very least. It is one thing, after all, to know that he is a failure, but it is quite another to beg for Batman’s pity. As if the man did not have far better things to do than to indulge Shadow’s weaknesses in both aspects of his life! But the question did come out, and Shadow cannot take it back. He breathes in, deep and unsubtle, and does not allow his neck to bend, even though his gaze plunges low enough that the tip of his nose and the inside of his helmet are the only things he can see.

Batman, for his part, has frozen. Stunned, probably, that Shadow has the audacity to ask that sort of question. To be that pathetic. It would make sense. Probably.

“I do what has to be done,” Batman says at last. “And if something is a problem, I work at it until it is not one anymore.”

Shadow nods. That makes—a lot of sense, actually. And if he is honest, he knows it would be best for him to leave his whining behind and work on the things that are problems, but...well, the thing is, everything seems to be a problem these days, for Shadow and Kal both. Eating is a problem. Showering is a problem. It is not that he does not do these things anymore. He does. But where such tasks used to be perfunctory, so automatic as to go unnoticed, it sometimes takes him hours to brace himself for the journey from labs to shower, from shower to bed. In the morning, the journey back is just as hard. Neither Shadow nor Kal—to say nothing of the creature in between—has enjoyed a meal in weeks, let alone any kind of activity beside that.

If Shadow were a better man—a stronger man—he would get a hold of himself and pull himself back into working order, but he is not. He is not, and he cannot. He has disappointed Batman tonight, and he will disappoint him again, that much is easy to see. And...it would not be so bad if Sh—if he had known better than to allow his hopes to grow in the first place. It would not have hurt so much if he had remembered that the truth of him lies not in Kal, not in Shadow, but in that dark and shriveled space inside. If he had known better than to let himself think this part of him could possibly hope to rise from the mediocrity clinging to its bones, even to fulfill the only purpose he thought he had. If he had been smart enough not to expect anything more than passable performances, then failing would not have been so painful.

But he did not know better, and the bitterness of reality burns at the corners of his eyes, the edges of his cheeks. It slides down the bridge of his nose and onto his neck without his permission, even as he struggles to keep his breathing even, his voice controlled. There is a cold, grim pride in realizing there is no trace of tears in his voice when he says, “You’re right. I have to—I’ll do better.”

He has no idea how, yet, but he will figure it out. After all, he can hardly do worse.

It takes Shadow more time than usual to climb up the disused elevator shaft, but he does manage it eventually. He collapses at the foot of it with a relieved sigh, thankful for once that Kryo’s security protocols mean he is to survey the top of the stairs and is, therefore, nowhere to be seen. There is too much of a mess in Shadow’s head to bear the thought of a witness. He does not have the strength to deal with it and with his hunit at the same time. Showering, in itself, is an ordeal. He goes through it with mechanical gestures, wiping the snot from his upper lip and the blood from his knee, where the suit’s rearranging circuitry cut him during a false move. When he emerges, he is...slightly less of a walking piece of waste, perhaps. It is a good thing, and, clinging to that, Shadow mostly settles himself down into the hunch of Kal’s shoulders, his more timid intonations. Kal is still unable to stomach the thought of walking as far as his rooms, though, and so once Shadow’s suit has shifted into more princely garments, he alters his course and goes to collapse in the nearest library.

They have entered the small hours of the night, now. Everyone, even Batman will be asleep—or at the very least pretending to sleep. There is little risk of being disturbed, or even found before the household wakes. It leaves more than enough time for Kal to dismiss Kryo and let the suit’s sleeve rearrange into a communication screen to type a quick message saying he is home, safe and sound. The rest of the night hardly matters, and Kal is not planning to discuss it until Kara writes:

_What’s wrong?_

Kal blinks, display beads blurring in front of him as exhaustion takes over and makes him slouch even further, and raises his knees to his chest until only half of him is even taking any space at all.

_Nothing,_ he types.

_You have not been punctuating._

Kal’s nose itches. He sniffles a little, just enough to dislodge the dust stuffing his nostrils. Just enough to try and swallow around the knot in his throat.

_I’m fine_

_Kal. What is it?_

_Just tired_

There is no way to know whether Kara is even looking at her handscreen anymore. She might have gone to sleep, for all Kal knows. She would be right to, even. But much as Kal dreads the turn their conversation has taken, he can’t quite help himself from feeling like a drowning man clutching at a buoy when the material of his sleeve forms into a new line of text:

_You have been tired for months, now. Perhaps it is time you allowed yourself some rest._

_From what? There is little enough for me to do, here_

_From your projects. You have been doing nothing but that for weeks on end. Perhaps it is time you stopped following my advice and found something else to do. It would do you good to spend a little more time with Batman._

_He has no interest in me_

Gods, the self-pity, even in the written words, is unbearable. Kal grits his teeth just seeing it on the screen. Has he not had enough? Has he not shown how pitiful he is often enough already? He should stop here, and he knows it. But instead of bidding his cousin goodbye and going to bed, Kal watches with some horror as his fingers keep typing as if on their own:

_He has no interest in shadow either_

_he is right_

_Where in the Sixth Heaven is that even coming from?_ Kara sends back, almost instantly.

_Nowhere,_ Kal tells her. _I suppose I am a little_

_tired_

_I almost caused our doom tonight_

_one day, I actually will_

_I suppose I am tired of wondering if today will be the day_

_You must be exhausted indeed to say that sort of nonsense,_ Kara sends after a long pause. _You need to take time to rest, Kal. Everyone has their ups and downs, you simply need to pull yourself together._

Kal gapes as the screen, shocked as if by a slap. There are—he does not know that there are words to describe the hollowness gaping in his chest, the pressure around his throat. His eyes burn again, hotter than before. When he breathes in, it sounds ragged. Painful and laborious, like a wounded animal. He forces himself through it—then through another, and another, until he feels composed again, and can...until he is somewhat composed again. Held together as if with gossamer, but composed nonetheless. Adult. Mature. Rational.

He has every intention of being exactly that: of thanking Kara for the advice and going to heed it as soon as possible. But then his eyes catch the words again, and nothing in the world can stop the tears from spilling.

It takes Kal a while to realize he is not alone, caught up as he is in the aching burn of tears down his face. It is as if the world vanished in his sobs, somehow, swallowed whole by a thing Kal should have known better than to let grow so vast—should have known better than to succumb to. He cries, and cries, and cries, and does not notice there is anyone there until a hand settles on his shoulder, light and too tight at the same time as if its owner couldn’t quite tell what sort of pressure would provide the most comfort. Kal shrinks away, at first. He buries his face deeper in the hollow between his knees, arms coming up to cover his head and shield the burning heat of his neck from the rest of the world.

Eventually, though, the tears run out. They leave him empty, wrung out, as if after two days without sleep. In his chest, Kal’s lungs echo with cold wind, a wet and pale feeling where there should be warmth and sun. Despair left with the tears, though, and Kal may be cold but he is also settled, somewhat, mind cleared just enough to make him feel almost coherent as he runs a hand across his face and turns to whoever decided to stay with him. He is perhaps more surprised than he should be, caught somewhere between gratitude and mortification, as he discovers Batman’s cowled face looking down at him with a frown. It seems the Gods have decided today will not be his day.

“Do you feel better?” Batman asks before Kal can think of anything to say, proper grammar still firmly in place.

The shift from talking to Kal like an equal to talking to him with the respect due to a prince greatly improved Batman’s quality of life in the palace, but Kal’s stomach has yet to learn not to drop with disappointment every time it happens. It makes him ache for the night, and the way Batman at least sees Shadow as an equal, if one of little use.

Kal nods, unable to make himself speak. He wants to stay the way he is—to coil tighter and tighter until he disappears and people forget he ever existed at all. To vanish into the night and become...the wind, maybe, or something equally untouchable. His parents would disapprove, though, and the weight of their gazes is on his mind as he gathers what little dignity he has left and forces himself to uncurl. Bit by bit, Kal straightens up, bare feet resting on the plush carpeting, toes digging into the fibers as if he can find strength down there. He is acutely aware of the itch in his face, the splotchy heat in his cheeks. How ridiculous does he look? There is nothing here he can use to fix his appearance, but he cannot help but wonder. At least if he could see himself, he would be able to assess just how disappointed Batman must be in him. Assuming he can still be disappointed in Kal, that is—assuming there is a greater depth to which his opinion of Kal could possibly sink.

There is no point in dwelling on the topic, however, and Kal makes himself take a breath. Batman is going out of his way to give Kal some attention when he cannot possibly want to be doing that. The least Kal can do is to make this encounter as short as possible, and let Batman be on his way.

“Thank you,” he tells the man, relieved when the tremor of his voice does not grow to a full tremble. “I am fine now.”

He cannot possibly look fine. Even without the tears—and those, Batman cannot miss—the lack of sleep must be easy to read in the hollows of his face by now. Kara, he knows, would be marching him to bed at this point, pulling promises of sleep from him before they even reached his bedchambers. Kara has long been familiar with short nights herself, before she even discovered Kal and Shadow were one and the same, but she has always been adamant about sleeping for a six-hour stretch every night, and has never hesitated to bully Kal into following the same rules.

Batman is not Kara, however, and where she would be sending him to sleep, he stands by Kal’s side without a word, solid and surreal in the darkness of the library. The top of his head, silhouetted against the ocher light of the moons, looks like stone, and it seems like he could wait forever for Kal to speak. Perhaps it is the comfort—or threat—of it that makes Kal blurt out:

“Truly, I am fine. Sometimes things are—I am fine. I will take care of this.”

“If that is what you want,” Batman says, voice entirely neutral, hand immobile. “We could also talk, if you would prefer. It does not have to be about...this.”

The carefully nonspecific phrasing makes Kal snort, as he wipes the last of his tears on the heels of his hands and resists the urge to lean into Batman like a tired child. He should be better at this. Batman, he is sure, would never be caught in this sort of state. He is too professional—too controlled—for it.

He did offer, though, and it might be that he is only acting out of pity—a part of Kal thinks, perversely, that Batman might be hoping to have the library to himself, but he shuts it down. It feels somehow ungrateful to listen to that voice for too long. Out of pity or not, however, Batman did offer to listen, and where else is Kal going to find someone to confide in? The only one who would be willing to listen is Kara, but she is busy, and does not seem to realize her advice of pushing through the pain and being normal again will not work for Kal. And, in all honesty, what harm could possibly come of confessing to someone who considers him uninteresting already? If worst comes to worst and the conversation proves unhelpful, well. Kal has learned to deal with that.

“It is nothing,” he says with a small shrug. “It is—I suppose I am...frustrated, sometimes. That I am not—”

It does not feel right to say ‘good enough’. Too self-pitying, too overt a demand for attention. Too desperate a plea for an absolution Kal does not deserve. He changes tack:

“That I do not have a Guild.”

There is a pause, heavy and cold, and Kal bites his lip. Why did he have to say that, and why did he have to say it to Batman, of all people? Crying about his Guildlessness is not going to make Kal sound any less pathetic; quite the opposite. Besides, he chose it, did he not? He could have followed Kara and his parents’ advice and dedicated himself to the learning of a Guild of his choice, and then perhaps...oh, but who is he trying to fool? No amount of work would ever have compensated for an absence of genetic markers, and while Kal might have spared himself some suffering if he had chosen that path, he might as easily have made his life worse. There is no real way for him to know, and, from what he knows, no basis of comparison in Batman’s culture, so what is the point?

“I apologize,” he tells Batman. “I know you do not care for that system.”

The alien has been discreet about this in public, but there was a time when he did not shy away from sharing his opinions with Kal. Even now, as he smiles—or gives the impression of a smile—Batman does not seem overly invested in the topic.

“Evidently, you do,” he says anyway.

There is a short pause, as if Batman were chewing on his words before he adds:

“So does the rest of Krypton. A great deal, from what I understand.”

“They do,” Kal admits, head bowed almost without his consent. “I know I should heed Kara’s advice and ignore them. I know I am too sensitive, but—”

“With...all due respect to your cousin,” Batman says, slipping out of his more formal grammar and into the familiar forms he used to use to talk to Kal, “it seems to me like it is quite flippant of her to call this easy to ignore when she has a Guild to belong to.”

Kal blinks, raising his head to look at Batman again, jaw slack with surprise. Never, in his entire life, has he been told anything like this, and in less than a second his throat clenches again. He breathes through it, and swallows hard.

“I do not—I have no idea what it is like not to have a Guild on Krypton. But I do know how it feels when everyone you meet has been convinced you were an idiot long before they ever met you.”

This time, when Kal blinks, there is a distinctly deprecating grimace on Batman’s lips, as if he has just swallowed something incredibly bitter. Kal understands the sentiment, of course. Of course he does. But the thought of Batman—quite possibly the smartest, most competent person Kal has ever met—being regarded with anything but awe and respect? Let alone the same sort of disdain the rest of Krypton has for Kal? Impossible.

“Please,” Kal says, voice smaller than he likes, “do not feel like you must pretend on my behalf. You—”

“I’m not—” Batman breathes in, deep and long, and when he speaks again his tone is entirely stable: neutral to the point of blankness. “I am not pretending.”

He is controlled, the emotion gone from his voice, and a part of Kal admires that. The rest of him, though, focuses on the tightness of Batman’s jaw. On the way his fingers dug—briefly, but hard enough to bruise—into the meat of Kal’s shoulder. On the way his other hand has clenched into a tight fist. Kal sees all of this and realizes with a dismayed sort of awe, that Batman is, indeed, telling the truth.

“On Earth, I—most people do not...see me as a very smart person. You could say I am something of an idiot.”

“You are not!” Kal protests, more vigorous than he would have anticipated. “I may not have known you long, but—”

“I know,” Batman says, not an ounce of arrogance in the tone. “My point is—just because a group of people deems you useless does not mean you are. Sometimes people are wrong, even as a group.”

Kal’s mouth opens and closes before he can even figure out what he wants to say. It seems, however, that Batman sees something in his expression, because the next time he speaks—quiet, collected, but with what sounds a little like regret in his tone—he says:

“I can be wrong, too.”

Kal clamps his mouth shut at that, teeth clicking together as he lowers his head again. It takes longer to get himself under control this time, more effort to push the words aside and keep them for later examination. Some words—some gifts—cannot possibly be appraised at a glance.

“Thank you,” Kal manages anyway, the words all the fainter for having to squeeze their way through the tightness of his throat.

He gets to his feet, then, breathing fast, eyes burning. He may be able to set Batman’s words aside, but his heart cannot, and despite Batman’s noise of protest—or what Kal thinks, hopes, is a noise of protest—he bows in gratitude.

“It is late, and I do not wish to impose on you any further,” he says. “Thank you for your kind words. Good night, Batman.”

This time, the alien does not try to stop him. Kal makes his way back to his apartments on quiet feet, one hand pressed over his mouth, and cannot quite tell what sort of tears he spills as he cries himself to sleep.

Batman spends more time with Kal, after that night in the library. It is...awkward, in a way their language lessons never were. Part of it is that it is impossible to disentangle the sudden resurgence of interest from what felt like one of the most humiliating encounters of Kal’s life; but another, not insignificant part is also that Batman himself does not quite seem to know what he is trying to do. Or rather it feels like he is trying to help, but does not quite know how to go about it, as if his kindness were a long-unused muscle he has not yet figured out how to train. The thought is touching, and Kal knows to appreciate the sentiment—he does! But there is a sense of purpose in these encounters, a feeling of reaching for a definitive goal, that wasn’t there back when they simply exchanged ideas and asked questions about each other’s culture.

Kal is grateful for Batman’s help. He is. But quite aside from the fact that every one of their conversations makes it more obvious that Batman is better suited to leadership positions—much as the Nightwing associations continue to chafe at him—there is also a part of him that misses the days when Batman treated him not as a mission, not as someone to fix, but as a friend.

Still, they continue on, and it is soothing to have someone to talk to again. Not as much as it used to be—not nearly enough to compensate for all of Kal’s shortcomings, both in and out of Shadow’s costume—but enough at least to lull him into a sense of—of misplaced optimism. Just enough for Kal to think that maybe, if he gives himself enough time, he will manage to fix his flaws. To stop being sorry, and start being better.

Life, as it is wont to do, proves him wrong less than two weeks after the incident in the library, the night before his thirtieth birthday.

He knew—from the very start, he knew his poor sleeping habits would become a major problem, given time. He knew this, and still he refused to do what needed to be done, too worried about the dangers of sleeping medicines to accept that they were the only solution to his problem.

Now Shadow is running after a group of Kandori soldiers, the data sticks in their pockets containing enough information to bring down a significant portion—if not all—of the Dark Sun’s escape routes, and he is losing ground. His lungs burn with the effort of keeping up with Batman, or at the very least keeping the alien in his line of sight; his legs scream in protest with every movement. By his sides, his arms pull at his shoulder blades as if to split him in half. He is drenched with sweat under the suit, panting for breath even as he calls out Kara’s directions as to where to find the people they pursue, grateful that she is here to keep track of his suit’s readings when he is too exhausted to focus on anything but the chase.

Several feet ahead, Batman is all but flying. Every line of his body screams competence, confidence. Earlier, when the Kandori soldiers split up—two leaving, while the other three remained to take care of the so-called terrorists—Batman was the only reason Shadow got out of the fight at all, let alone unscathed. Even now, when the soldiers make a wrong turn and shove themselves into a dead end, it is Batman who catches up with them first, all but gliding into immobility. What his uniform is supposed to represent, Shadow does not know; but he cannot blame the two Kandori for recoiling from it, both the color and the shape far too reminiscent of Nightwing—and, by extension, the wrath of Vohc—to leave any Kryptonian indifferent. Even Shadow shivers as he takes his place by Batman’s side.

“Kal, you have to sit this one out,” Kara warns in his helmet. “Your readings—”

“I don’t really have a choice,” Shadow mutters between two heaving breaths.

To his left, Batman gives him a sharp look, but does not speak. Shadow allows himself two more lungfuls of air before he speaks in Kandori:

“Give us the data. We will let you go unharmed.”

Neither of the soldiers answer, but one of them spits on the ground. No need to translate that. On Shadow’s left, Batman stiffens.

“Kal, please,” Kara insists, just as Batman says:

“Fine.”

Batman jumps into the fight without hesitation. Behind him, Shadow scrambles—grapples with one of the soldiers to pull her off Batman’s back. Lands in a puddle with a hiss. Rolls back to his feet. When he raises his head, the soldier—a captain, her uniform says—is smirking at him. Why shouldn’t she? Batman is busy, and Shadow has already demonstrated he is not up for this fight. He braces himself when she comes for him. Dispatches the material of one baton to reinforce the suit. He ducks a punch. Catches another in the shoulder; the suit absorbs it. But not the third, or the fourth. He falls to his knees.

“Kal!” Kara calls out in his ears.

He shakes his head.

“Kal, get up!”

He tries to obey. Under him, his knees refuse to move. When the electrified knife comes for him, he does not know how he dodges it. A roll of his shoulder, a ripple of his suit. A lucky swing. The soldier falls to the ground with a cry. Shadow drags himself to his knees. Strikes her in the stomach with a baton while her partner passes overhead and crashes into the nearest wall. He is wearing a corporal’s uniform.

“Nightwing,” he tells Batman, gesturing to the woman even as he tries to hold her to the ground, “the data—”

“You have a bigger problem,” Kara warns.

Inside the helmet, the bead display morphs into an arrow and the words ‘danger, multiple unknowns’.

“Shadow!” Batman barks as he catches the soldier’s electrified knife seconds before it hits Shadow in the face. “Pay attention!”

“There’s more coming,” Shadow gasps in return, head turning to the right again. “We need to go.”

“I have the sticks.”

Batman pulls the woman’s handcuffs off her belt and forces her wrists into them. The man, still struggling to even sit up, they leave alone as they hurry out of the dead end, only for a loud, angry cry to echo through the streets.

“Shit,” Batman hisses.

From the corners of his eyes, Shadow counts six soldiers—three Ellons, three Kandori—and swears in turn before he catches Batman’s cape and they take off into a mad dash through the streets.

“We have to get to the roofs,” Batman yells.

Shadow does not answer. There is not enough breath left in him for it. He runs, lungs burning, legs aching, arms screaming, and prays to Rao to send something, anything to help them—prays to Vohc to spare Batman, at least, to leave El and Krypton a fighting chance in the near future. What he gets instead is a long series of bright blue riffle lights, and a piece of stone crashing into his helmet as he drags Batman into the nearest side street, relief coursing through him when he spots an emergency ladder, eight feet up in the air.

“Support,” he gasps as he steps into Batman’s hands to reach the bottom of the ladder, “we’re going to need extraction!”

“You had reinforcement this whole time?” Batman exclaims under him.

“I have your position,” Kara retorts, a rustling sound echoing behind her, “but you need to get to the mountains!”

“On the way,” Shadow manages.

Every inch of him protests when he jumps from the roof he and Batman emerged on to the next, muscles straining past what he ever thought was possible; but they have no other choice. He has no other choice. Every gap between houses is too wide, every roof too slick—but still he jumps, and catches himself, and scrambles up because if he does not, he will die. Roofs explode around them, the militia’s rifles blasting ancient walls into rubble, and with every one of them Shadow’s panic rises, his heart beats faster, his jumps grow messier.

“Nearly there,” Batman shouts.

He must have guessed where they are going. Shadow nods under his helmet. Pants, gasps, scrambles to the very last roof, and, without hesitation, dives into the air. The suit rearranges around him, carries him farther than he could ever have hoped to go on his own. Shadow shouts in joy when a bug lands less than a yard away from them, the bright blue of its engines shining like a small sun in the night.

“Shadow, get down!”

There is the dull sound of a body throwing itself to the ground. A bright blue flash, from behind. Shadow falls, the breath stolen from his lungs. Behind him, a cry of triumph, and then the shrill scream of sound cannons echoing over the mountains. Shadow gasps, tries to breathe, to shield his ears, to move, but he can’t, he can’t, it hurts too much, he can’t—

He cries out again when Batman seizes him. The world falls away, the loud, harsh sound of his ragged breathing filling his helmet until he can’t hear anything else. His vision goes gray, then black, then gray again. By the time he manages to focus on anything else, he is lying on the ground at the back of the bug, wind screaming past him through the open doors. Overhead, Batman is pawing at his shoulders, his neck.

“Come on,” he growls, something odd in his tone, “there has to be a way—”

“Excuse me,” Kal says, forgetting to adopt Shadow’s lower timbre, “may I help you?”

Batman freezes. Stares at Kal’s helmet through the cowl, hands and mouth gone slack. Kal coughs, and orders the suit to initiate its wound management protocol. He yelps when the first nanobots gather on the burnt flesh itself, hissing and biting his lip as the pilot tells them they are only five minutes away from their departure point.

“Departure point?” Batman asks.

Kal barely hears him through the rush of his blood in his ears. Half his skin crawls with the rippling movement of the suit, nanobots pulling away from unnecessary areas—his batons, first, then his helmet—to put pressure on the wound and reinforce the armature around Kal’s legs, his lower back. His head falls back and hits the ground when he loses support to his neck.

“No—ow—no material in—”

“But the Palace!” Batman shouts—Kal think he hears their pilot gasp. “There must be a doctor, a—anyone! You cannot have been working without some kind of safety—”

“Support—on the way,” Kal manages, struggling to keep his eyes open now that the blood loss is making itself known. “Not a doctor.”

“Then someone else!” Batman hisses.

Again, that tension in his words. Something in his voice...if Kal did not know better, he would be tempted to call it anguish. On Kal’s behalf. How unexpected.

“It’s okay,” Kal says, distantly relieved when his voice remains steady.

He knew this could happen. From the very first day, he knew. There is no surprise, here, except the absence of tears in his voice, the utter dryness at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps it is the pain that swallows them. Perhaps his body, trying so hard to pull him into oblivion, does not have the strength for them. Regardless, his voice is steady, and it remains steady when he says:

“I’ve been curious about Earth for a long while now.”

A short silence, while Batman absorbs Kal’s words and then, in English:

“You utter reckless idiot!”

“Batman—”

“Do not ‘Batman’ me!” Batman almost shouts, back to Ellon now. “What kind of stupid idea—”

The bug lands, lurching to a stop with a hiss as its grips anchor it to the mountainside. Inside the suit, Kal’s entire left side throbs, and he loses himself in the pain.

He opens his eyes to a higher ceiling and no wind, no smell of grass, no red moonlight around him. There is the soft feeling of a mattress under him and, to the right, someone tall and blonde working the controls of a healing pod. The suit still presses down on the wound, but even with it Kal’s vision remains frightfully gray. With a terrible effort, he gasps, and Kara turns—she pushes one last lever and, in a hiss of machinery, strides toward Kal and stands by his bedside. Her cheeks glisten.

“I was afraid you would leave without saying goodbye,” she says with a shiver in her voice. “Not that they should be very long—you have lost rather a lot of blood.”

There is a loud click, and the cot under Kal buzzes to life, the vibration strong enough to make him wince—to make him gasp, grasping for a breath that isn’t there, that won’t come, and his eyes widen with fear. Kara’s hand on his brow feels warm, almost too warm, and Kal leans into the touch with a sigh. He wants to stroke Kara’s hand—to hold her fingers one last time, but when he tries it feels like his arm has turned into a mix of lead and rubber, and all he succeeds in doing is making his hand flop out of the bed. He heaves a breath in.

“Kara….”

Kara’s face, haloed in golden blond in a sea of dark greens and near-black grays, squeezes tight, her eyes shining. Her hand leaves a burning trail from Kal’s forehead to his cheek.

“Oh, Kal,” she says, and breathes in hard.

Under him, the cot vibrates harder, and someone moans. It takes Kal a moment to realize that it is him.

“Batman is starting the ship, now,” Kara says the effort she makes to keep her voice steady pitching it much higher than normal. “Kryo will help him pilot. You will only have to say in the pod and heal.”

There will be no last look at Krypton, then. No sight of the mountains from above; no image of the Citadel, red against the darkness of El’s mountains, to treasure in Kal’s exile. Kal tries to take a breath—it feels like swallowing seawater and makes his throat tight, makes his eyes hurt. For the first time tonight, tears come to him, unbidden.

“You will be fine,” Kara says above him. “You will survive, and you will heal. And you will write to me.”

“Kara,” Kal manages.

It is more whine than word and it hurts—it hurts so much, tearing at the back of his throat, squeezing his lungs. Tears burn at his temples, tracing a searing path from his eyes to his hairline, and when Batman and the anonymous pilot come to move Kal’s bed toward the pod, panic seizes every last inch of him.

“Kara,” he repeats, “please, I don’t—”

His throat closes before he can finish his sentence, but she understands, Kal is sure of it. For years, Kal has told himself leaving Krypton would be a boon, his one chance at building a better life for himself. The only way for him to find a place he could fit and belong in. Now that moment is here and his heart recoils—clings to the steep slopes and the sharp edges of El’s mountains, the red light of the two moons. The northern winds, cold and deadly, and the smell of elderfir on the warm air of summer nights. Countless days spent sitting on a balcony, looking at El from above and pretending he could see Ul, far in the South. There will be no more of that for Kal, no more of anything; and here, at last, at the edge of leaving, he finds himself sobbing for a loss he never truly believed would pain him.

“Be safe now,” Kara tells him as the two men transfer Kal onto the pod’s bed. “Be happy, if you can.”

She presses a bruising kiss to Kal’s forehead, and he wants to answer—wants to look at her one last time and keep this, at least, in his heart. There are too many tears in his eyes now, fear gripping his heart too tight to leave room for anything else, and he squeezes his eyelids shut against the bright white light of the pod.

The last he sees of Kara is barely more than a small blonde dot in his peripheral vision.


	3. Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, you're a Kryptonian on Earth and your body is changing....

Healing pods are designed to be a blank space. A place where the body can heal and the mind be left idle, bathed in warm fluids and soft bubbling noises. There is nothing else, in a pod, save maybe the dizzying feeling left behind by the abrupt disappearance of pain. Kal floats in that warmth forever—or maybe just a minute—and the silence around him is occasionally broken by a deep sound, muffled, as if it comes from far away.

Then there is a vibration, a great noise of suction like the emptying of a sink, and Kal finds himself thrown headfirst into the bone-deep cold of reality, shivering and with half a mind to scream. He struggles, blind and disoriented, against the burning things trying to pull him—up? Down? There is no telling. Kal gasps, blinks against the veil that will not let him bring the world into focus. Twists away from the burn and ache of something else on his skin—and sinks into darkness.

The world comes back in snatches. Shivers—cold, then hot, then cold again. Gray-green so dark, it is nearly black. Voices overhead, talking...to him, perhaps. Or rather about him. Then there is dark, a vast emptiness that lasts for a long time, until Kal’s mind reaches the surface once more. Smells. Something dry, warm on his clammy forehead. A voice, deep and gravelly. The abyss.

The cycle continues for a while, though Kal could not say how long if his life depended on it. Several times, he almost wakes—brings images of what happens then into the next attempt—until he can finally open his eyes, blink, and know that he is in a spacecraft. More blinking, a painful twist of his neck, and he learns that he is in a _Kryptonian_ spacecraft, most likely the one some El ancestor had the forethought to smuggle under the Citadel when space travel was banned, after the Lanterns’ war.

Pain and remembrance come to him all at once, then, as if one had called the other, and he gasps around them—breathes in, deep and hard, until his lungs hurt, his throat aches, and there are burning lines running from the corners of his eyes. His body aches, too, muscles still sore around the scar where he was shot, and his neck feels rigid under him, painful enough that his one attempt at raising his head tears another pained gasp from him. He tries to focus on this, and not the rest, but the memory of it—Kara’s face as he was lowered into the pod—rushes back, and back, and back every time he tries to push it away, until he has no choice but to surrender to the sobs or choke on them. There is a hand on his forehead, then, cool and dry and a shade too strong to be entirely comforting, and Kal wishes he could stop himself from leaning into it, but does not have the strength for it yet.

“Stop moving,” Batman says, something stern in his tone even after he tries to soften his voice. “You’ll make things worse.”

The snort escapes Kal’s throat before he can even think of stopping it, neck twisting again in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Kryo’s silvery form. Hunits like it were never meant to pilot a ship like this one, let alone on an intergalactic journey. It makes sense that it would be keeping its entire attention on the task, added programming or no...yet Kal’s throat tightens again when he cannot find it, homesickness so strong for just a moment that it threatens to engulf him again.

He forces himself to swallow instead—accepts the water Batman presses to his lips, and asks, “How long was I—?”

“You were in the pod for about four days,” Batman says, “and unconscious for the next thirty-six hours.”

Kal manages a nod, throat tightening despite his best efforts. Six days away from Krypton—six days since he saw a glimpse of it for the last time in his life. The thought feels strange, in his mind—overpowering yet not quite there, like an obnoxious mirage waiting to be dismissed or reveal itself as reality, and Kal breathes in deep, tries to ignore the call of it. It is not an easy task.

“Well,” he forces out in the end, hoping against hope that a new thread of conversation might be of some help redirecting his thoughts, “I suppose it could be worse.”

“Hardly,” Batman replies, and Kal’s mouth clicks shut, what little resolve he’d managed to muster vanishing in an instant.

“Batman,” he starts, but, not for the first time, Batman snaps:

“Do not ‘Batman’ me. You have been walking around sick and sleep-deprived—you endangered countless lives with your recklessness, including your own. That shot could have killed you! You are lucky the healing pod was well-maintained, or you might be paralyzed by now.”

“I am sorry,” Kal mumbles, stomach slowly sinking to somewhere beneath his recovery bed.

Guilt presses at his chest, at his temples, at the corners of his eyes. Batman is, after all, perfectly right. In point of fact, he is being remarkably restrained about this—he could be much, much harsher on the topic and still say nothing more than Kal deserves, nothing more than the truth. Kal knew, the second the cycle began, that there would be no excuse for it.

“I knew you were green,” Batman continues, hissing more than speaking now, “but had I known you were such a reckless idiot—did you think yourself immortal? Did you think death would not take you?”

Kal looks away, biting the inside of his cheek until his focus narrows down to the pain and not the burn of words he would never be able to take back—until his eyes close of their own accord, lids burning as if someone were trying to seal them with melted wax. Overhead, Batman takes a sharp breath in, and Kal wishes he could fall out of existence as easily as dust from a shelf.

“Did you even care that it could?”

Kal does not answer. Eventually, Batman’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, squeezing tight—too tight: the skin might bruise, but the gesture is a comfort nonetheless.

“Kryo says we should reach Earth in a few hours,” Batman says in a voice gone from furious to entirely blank. “You should take the opportunity to rest.”

There is the barest of pauses, as if Batman had inexplicably faltered, before he turns on his heel and leaves. Kal remains alone in the healing chambers of the ship, unable to bring himself to open his eyes. Batman might be right: perhaps Kal will like Earth. Perhaps he won’t. There is no way to be sure, but the one thing that is certain is that he will not see Krypton again for a long time, if he ever does. Tears gather in his eyes as fast as memories in his mind, and he makes no effort to repel either. His arrival on Earth—his installation, as far he can tell—will require his full attention, after all. If he is to lose himself in grief, he might as well do it while there is nothing else to do.

Krypton...the Citadel may not have been the best home, for Kal, but it was his home. He knew every wall, every room, every tapestry of it. The Citadel was a vast cocoon of familiarity and a—tenuous, but real—connection to a family he could never help but feel removed from. It was not an ideal home, but it was home, and now that Kal has left, the list of things he must mourn seems to go on forever. No more sunsets setting the mountains aflame with red light. No more standing on the balconies of the Stateroom of Peace and admiring the Lords and Ladies’ Citadel residences below. No more comforting himself with the knowledge that, whatever else might happen, there would always be his labs and his plants—and Kara—to return to.

Who can tell whether there will ever be that sort of space for him on Earth? The ship, he supposes, might be kept...but it will not be on Earth. What if Kal never truly adapts? Batman survived Krypton without much trouble on the physical side of things, so Kal is not too worried about that. But what if he never finds a way to fit in? And what will it cost him to even attempt it? He is willing to make the effort; that is not the question. But he does know all too well that sometimes, even doing one’s best is not enough...and what then?

There is no way to know. Kal lies there, on a small medical cot in an ancient spaceship, with nothing for company but the icy emptiness of space and an alien who must be overjoyed to come home, until exhaustion claims him and he finally falls into an uneasy sleep.

Kal wakes up with a shout of pain on his lips, the entire left side of his abdomen tingling as if with static. Most of his muscles ache, complaining over their disuse, the skin around them too tight and too dry for comfort. Kal breathes in deep, taking stock. The cot under him is moving—not in the smooth hovering glide of Kryptonian equipment, but rather with a regular rattle of small wheels on a smooth, hard surface. It sounds like the sort of cabinets Kal has encountered in the older corners of the Palace, antiques meant to store documents too precious to be traded for digital copies. A brief flash of himself as an antique—left in a glass case and surrounded by two or three conservation-specialized hunits—makes its way into Kal’s head, and he snorts against the hard material of something like a mask pressing on the lower half of his face. There is a blindfold on his eyes, too, but the feeling of the air on his face speaks of cool darkness rather than sunlight. The smell of water is in the air.

Kal raises a hand to pull his blindfold off.

“Do not,” Batman says overhead. “You are not to exert yourself until you are both healed and used to Earth’s atmosphere.”

Kal does not have it in himself to chuckle, even grimly so. Healing, he knows, will take time, but adapting to Earth’s characteristics...who knows how long that will take? Just because Batman stopped panting like an ox every time he moved after three weeks does not guarantee Kal will achieve the same. Even if he does, there is no saying what other problems Earth may pose to him. The planet shares a number of characteristics with Krypton, it is true. Batman would have died, otherwise. But it is also much smaller and much younger—as are its sun and its lone, undamaged moon. Who knows what that will do to his body?

“Would you at least remove the blindfold?” Kal manages. Then, when that provokes no response: “The fabric on my eyes?”

Batman speaks again, but over Kal rather than to him. Someone else—deep voice, steady tone,a different cadence to their words—answers him, and Kal’s tired brain somehow manages to recognize English, although he cannot make out any of the words he has learned. He sighs, trying to let the two voices lull him to sleep—he trusts Batman, after all, not to lead him into a trap—but in vain. He is grateful when, after a while, Batman’s hand—Batman’s naked hand!—brushes against his temple as it finally pulls Kal’s blindfold off.

“Thank you,” Kal manages, even as he blinks.

They are, as he suspected, not outdoors: a smooth, geometrical ceiling about twenty feet high blocks his view, light rippling over it with gentle irregularity. The lights are dim but clearly artificial, and while the space is too full to really echo, there is still a hollow quality to it as Batman and his companion discuss something or another over Kal’s bed.

A twist of his head reveals nothing but a rough wall of untouched stone to the right, the edges of Batman’s cape floating into view as he guides Kal’s bed along what must be some sort of walkway. To the left, a vast empty space, part of a large cavern that hasn’t been colonized by Batman’s vigilantism just yet. Kal stares at a large rock, jutting out of the water like Vohc rising from the depths of his very first creation, and follows the line of it into the darkness on the other side where a wall must be hiding. The walkway’s ceiling blocks his view when he tries to look further up, and he does not have the strength to twist enough to get a good look at the back of Batman’s cave; but he does catch a glimpse of a brighter area further in, the space built around—a statue, maybe. A column of some kind, in any case, and something Kal is reasonably sure is person-shaped, though whether it is meant to be an altar or a more profane sort of display, he does not know.

“Are these your headquarters?”

Batman remains quiet for a moment, while he and his—companion feels too impersonal. ‘Friend’ does not quite encompass the feeling in the air between them, much more reminiscent of Kal’s conversations with Kryo than the ones he used to have with Batman...and of course ‘hunit’ would be a wildly appropriate term to apply to any living being, especially one Batman addresses with that level of familiarity and respect. Whoever he is, he and Batman wheel Kal to a stop, the silence between them almost stony.

“Batman,” Kal manages, and is met with an explosive sigh.

“Yes. More precisely, you are now in the infirmary. Which I have, because I am not entirely foolish.”

Batman’s company speaks from somewhere on Kal’s right, and he sees Batman’s cowled head turn to look at them, the edge of his jaw squeezed tight. He does not answer, however, and turns back to Kal with a glare that makes Kal wish he could sink into the bed.

“Batman—”

“You deceived me.”

“What?” Kal protests. “No, I—”

“You told me you wished to help the citizens of El. You presented yourself as a man with a mission—not a death wish!”

Kal swallows, hands finding the edge of the medical cot and squeezing them as he blinks a sudden blur out of his eyes.

“I was not trying—”

“Were you not? You ignored every warning your body had to give, put everything you and your cousin had built in jeopardy—and all for what? To preserve your ego?”

Kal opens his mouth to protest—closes it. ‘That is not why I did it,’ he had been about to say, but would it have been true? He spent so much time focused only on putting one foot in front of the other—he never truly stopped to ponder his motivations for it. He wants to say ego was not the answer, but can he swear to the truth of it? Or does he only want to be seen in a better light than he deserves? He does not know—does not know that he wishes to know. Besides, does the answer truly matter to anyone but himself? His attitude the past few weeks constitutes either a dangerous inability to do what must be done, or a dangerous attempt to preserve undeserved pride, neither of which Batman should accept.

How could he? Kal may only have had a limited look at the man’s headquarters, but they are vast. They are full, too: full enough that even in such a cave the echo remains quite low, almost inaudible. Whether this cave is Batman's main lair or a secondary base, it must have taken years to assemble. Years of successful secrecy, years of building things Kal would never even have dreamed of accomplishing on Krypton.

Whatever Batman may be to his planet—however right Kal’s assumption that he and Shadow strove toward the same sort of goal, despite dramatic differences in their levels of success, turns out to be—it is quite clear that he has been working at it longer, harder, and far more competently than Kal ever managed.

“I apologize,” Kal says in the end, turning his face away from Batman, from the infirmary—from all of it, if he could.

To his right, Batman draws a breath in, ready to pursue the conversation—stops when his companion speaks. Four words, maybe five, and with no more steel in them than there had been before, but it is enough to shift the air in the room. At first the tension grows, as if on the verge of explosion—and then there is the scuff of a foot, the soft sound of fabric on concrete. Batman departs with the click of a door. For a few blessed seconds, all is quiet, and Kal swallows and blinks. Brings himself back under as much control as he can manage before the sound of Batman’s companion tinkering peters out. Kal keeps his gaze averted when the person steps nearer, focusing on the large rock in front of him, until the feeling of a hand on his shoulder—brief, soft, impersonally kind—makes him close his eyes again.

He is alone by the time he reopens them.

Kal must have fallen asleep without quite meaning to: he opens his eyes to the ceiling of Batman’s infirmary again, just in time for the door to click shut somewhere to the right of his head. His side is still quite sore, the skin itching with returning health, but his muscles feel mostly functional. With a huff of breath, Kal rolls over until he can prop himself up on his right elbow and take a more encompassing look at the cave.

He looks past his feet first, blinking at the sight of large metal doors set deep into the wall of the cave, the mechanisms necessary to have them move all but invisible. Whatever their purpose is, they look like the sort of things meant to withstand a siege. To the left, the walkway Kal was wheeled in on, flanked with two wheeled vehicles—ancient things, by Krypton’s standards, but Kal is starting to suspect they might not seem so to the average Earth citizen—and some sort of bulky aircraft. Kal studies it for a moment; notes the build of it, the disposition of its rotors, the way it is clearly meant for a lone pilot, before he moves on to the rest of the cave. There is the boulder he noticed on his way in—somehow larger and more menacing now that he is awake to see it. Behind it, glittering in the dark, an underground lake explains the damp coolness of the air.

It takes some effort to keep looking—Kal has to pull on still-tender skin in order to twist and follow the rough lines of the cave’s natural ceiling and find the bright white light of yet another glass case...a weapon room, perhaps, though it is difficult to say for sure. Kal has spent quite a lot of time poring over old books and microscopes, after all, and while his vision is not poor, it does show signs of use most Kryptonians' eyesight would not. It is difficult, in these conditions, to ascertain whether the shapes on the walls are truly objects or simple swaths of paint.

The display case, however, is easy to identify, and the armor inside unmistakable from that angle. Kal is still frowning at it when someone clears their throat behind him.

He turns around—too fast: it makes him hiss, flesh still tender. Healing pods have extraordinary properties, but it is a well-known fact that it does no one good to leave all the burdens of recovery to them. Kal takes a second to wish that were possible before he looks at the newcomer.

They are of average height, lean but not scrawny. Gray hair, cut short, parts on the side of their skull, and despite the scruff on their chin both the—visual aids, perhaps—and their clothes are immaculate, though the cuts and fabrics are foreign. But the care—the posture, the careful refusal to intrude—is familiar enough. Hunits, after all, are not the only sort of servants to be found on Krypton.

Kal watches as the domestic deposits a tray bearing water and a bowl of what seems to be broth—lukewarm, Kal assumes. It wouldn’t do to put his body through more effort than strictly necessary at this stage...especially not when they have no idea whether he will even be able to digest much of Earth’s food, if any. Batman’s ability to handle Ellon dishes with barely any discomfort is encouraging, but it does not, in the end, guarantee a similar outcome for Kal in any way.

“Thank you,” he tells the servant in English, flushing when he has to repeat himself.

Fortunately, terrible pronunciation is not enough to deter the alien—the human. Kal is on their planet, now: he is the alien. In any case, mangled phonetics or not, Batman’s servant does not seem to think less of Kal, smiling as they watch him dig into his predictably lukewarm yet delicious meal. At least he is lucky enough to start his days on Earth with a good meal. So good, in fact, that he waits until he has scraped every last drop out of the bowl before he thanks the servant again and, touching his forehead, says:

“My name is Kal.”

He repeats his name for good measure, and smiles when the human touches their chest rather than their head—"Alfred," they say. The oddity of the gesture is as charmingly incongruous in them as it was in Batman. The smile dims when Kal realizes he will need to adopt that same gesture in the future, and a number of other things he has yet to imagine but might very well find much more unpleasant than this.

He does not understand what Alfred says next, but the tone is easy to decipher, and Kal dismisses the concern with a practiced smile and a shake of his head. Then he asks:

“Where is Kryo?”

“Kryo?”

The corner of Alfred’s mouth twitches when Kal mimes Kryo’s shape in the air, but Kal ignores the urge to shrivel—squeezes his knee tightly enough for it to hurt—and watches the human point at the ceiling with one finger rather than their whole hand. Kal thanks the human in shaky English again, and is in the middle of wondering how to initiate something of a conversation when Batman appears at the door, Kryo hovering a step behind him.

He swallows, tensing without meaning to, and forbids himself from looking at Alfred for reassurance as Batman steps into the infirmary proper. There is something stiff in the way he moves, and when he speaks, it is with the grammatical forms of a noble and the familiarity of an equal.

“I was—harsh. This morning. That was...unnecessary.”

“Think nothing of it,” Kal says, heart hammering against his ribs without any good reason.

“I would,” Batman says, “but Alfred would disapprove.”

Alfred’s clothes rustle, when they recognize their name, but they do not comment, and Batman continues:

“He is pushier than he seems, but he is—not entirely wrong.”

“Please,” Kal says, voice somehow thinner and firmer at the same time, “there is no need to—”

“Look, you didn’t deserve—”

“Stop!” Kal all but shouts, blinking in surprise at his own outburst.

It takes him several seconds to bring his breathing back down to something bearable, to beat the urge to block his ears into submission. When he manages it, eyes stinging with vanishing pressure when he opens them, he finds his knuckles white on the coverlet. He has to work some more to swallow the sudden knot of tears in his throat, but once he does—once he feels his voice will remain steady enough—he ignores Batman’s renewed stiffness, pretends to forget about Alfred entirely, and asks Kryo:

“How long have I been in this cave?”

“Twelve hours and fifty-six minutes,” Kryo replies in its usual monotone. “The pod’s sedatives are all but out of your system by now.”

“Good. How long, do you think, until I recover?”

“You should be able to leave the bed in the next few days,” Kryo says. “Complete recovery is expected in one to three months, depending on the way you tend to your injury, and barring unforeseen complications.”

It is a good thing, Kal thinks—though he does not say it—that he will have little to do but recover in the upcoming days. Weeks...who knows how long, really. He knows little of Batman’s life for the present, the man incredibly discreet about it even when he still considered Kal a friend, but he knows enough to realize it will not afford Batman much time to take care of Kal. Should he even wish to. Whatever the road ahead may have in store for him, Kal had probably better prepare himself to face it alone.

“Thank you,” he tells Kryo, relieved when he manages to keep his sudden dread out of his voice.

And that is not his only source of reassurance: he has been done with his broth for ten minutes or so, now, and has yet to feel any adverse effect from it.

“Please set yourself up in language acquisition mode, and begin preparations for a learning course as soon as you gather enough data.”

“I did not know it could do that,” Batman says from his spot near the door.

Kal musters a tired smile.

“I suppose it is never too late to learn. It is a pity circumstances made this function useless to you, but I hope it might at least save you the trouble of finding me a tutor and explaining my presence on Earth, at least for a while.”

Besides, this way, Kal should be able to communicate with all relevant parties until he finds a place to settle in, whether on Earth or...elsewhere. Coming here was, after all, never part of the initial plan—that would have been the version of events in which an injured Kal left with a fully qualified physician as a companion, in addition to Kryo. But the moment came, and Batman was there, and why would Kara have deprived the Dark Sun of a most valued asset—and set herself up for the trouble of having to smuggle them back—when anyone could listen to a ship’s instructions and manage a well-functioning pod? It might have meant further gambling with Kal’s life, but he would have insisted on it, had he been conscious. He might have been reckless, and idiotic and—and a number of other things Batman has been too polite to call him, but Kal does have a certain sense of priorities, if nothing else.

“It should,” Batman says with a nod.

Kal watches him turn around and busy himself with the medical readings—some in the English alphabet, some in Ellon. The pointed ears of his cowl glint like teeth even in the darkness. Things remain quiet while Kal musters the will to speak, the broad expanse of Batman’s back more frightening now than it used to be back on Krypton, back before he tried to apologize, like he’d done something wrong, and Kal—swallows, ignores the tightness of his throat, and asks:

“Is there any way I might sit up?”

Most beds on Krypton are at least equipped with a positioning mechanism, designed to ease the daily life of the elderly. A bead mattress such as Kal is used to would most likely be too much to ask, but perhaps a bend in the bed’s frame...Kal bites on a hiss when Batman turns back around and fiddles with a small white remote, the bed lifting Kal’s upper body in a way that makes his left side twinge. Batman’s lips thin.

“I apologize,” Kal says, and feels his teeth click together when Batman cuts in:

“You nearly died. Pain is to be expected.”

Kal blinks, struggling to breathe for a few seconds. Then, in an effort to take the focus away from himself, he asks:

“Does Alfred know your face?”

“Yes,” Batman says.

His face—what portion of his face Kal can see, at least—does something rather complicated, his jaw tensing for the briefest moment before he says:

“I’m afraid I’m quite unused to sharing that secret with people.”

It takes Kal a few seconds longer than it should before he realizes what Batman is saying, what the raising of his hand means. This time, it is easy to ignore the pain in his side when he pushes himself off the mattress, hand outstretched, and says:

“Oh, no, there is no need—”

But Batman breathes in once, sharp and determined, and unclasps something in the neck of his suit, and suddenly there he is, staring at Kal with an expression—Gods. Kal is—he knows himself well enough to realize he would be transfixed by Batman’s face no matter what expression it bore. The strong jaw, the slight dip in the chin. The way his hair falls into his eyes, mussed from the cowl. It would, Kal is sure, take very little for a face like this to enrapture him completely.

But the way Batman looks at him is—there is something in it that pulls at Kal’s insides, something wild and raw—frightened, almost, but then...no. This is—why would Batman be afraid of him? He has seen every inch of Kal so far, a side of him so pathetic he never even dared to allow it into the light of day in front of Kara. How could a man like Batman be scared of—of that? Ridiculous. Kal blinks, heart hammering against his chest, and when he is done he finds Batman composed once more, face as neutral as it ever was under the cowl.

Somewhere at the bottom of Kal’s stomach, a shamefully perverse part of him misses—whatever made Batman’s face look like that, and he is still trying to figure out what to say when Batman clears his throat and turns away to inspect one of his displays with a look of intense focus.

“Kryo says you have undergone a fifteen percent amelioration,” he tells the display in a painfully neutral tone, and Kal—

“Thank you,” he blurts out, using the most respectful forms he can think of.

Batman pauses—so brief, so swiftly smoothed—and fiddles with the display screen in his hands.

“You helped me before,” he says without looking at Kal. “It seemed fair to return the favor now that you were injured.”

“Yes,” Kal makes himself say, the heat of a flush all but setting his neck and ears on fire. “Thank you for that, too.”

He is almost entirely certain he does not imagine the click of Batman’s teeth when he closes his mouth again.

Three days come and go, although Kal would not know that for sure if it weren’t for Kryo’s help. He spends most of that time sleeping and, once the suit is returned to him, using part of the material as a reading screen to lose himself in one of his favorite Flamebird myths. Not that there is nothing else for him to do; far from it. He must learn English, for one, and it wouldn’t go amiss for him to try and discover more about Earth’s cultures—or at the very least, the one Earth culture he is most likely to encounter in the near future.

He does not, however, have the slightest idea of where to begin, no true study plan—as this particular function of Kryo’s relies on the quantity of audio samples it can gather, and both Batman and Alfred are rather sparse with their words. There is also, of course, the matter of Batman’s six-month-long unplanned absence to deal with, and while Kal cannot possibly be of any help to them in that regard, he does at least know how to make himself unobtrusive during times such as these.

It is this skill of his that threatens to send him and Batman into their next argument. Kal, after all, does not only possess a functioning sense of when he is not wanted, but also a state-of-the-art multi-function military suit. In the end, it takes him comparatively little effort—although it does require a healthy dose of irritation at being forced to use a bedpan—to ignore Kryo’s injunctions not to leave the bed, slip into the suit and, having adjusted it to his needs, make his own way to the nearest bathroom.

The distance between said bathroom and Kal’s infirmary bed is irrelevant: by the time he is done with his business, all it takes is a couple of steps—three, if he is feeling particularly generous towards himself—before he has to sit down, winded beyond even making use of the suit. He is still sitting there, breathing deep and trying to keep the pain at bay with an archaic prayer to Rao, the cold of the stone seeping into his back, when Batman happens to pass by.

He has discarded the uniform this time, clad in a simple white shirt similar to Alfred’s usual uniform—and a style of pants that reveals much more of his backside than Ellon clothing did while somehow making the definition in his thighs much harder to discern. Not that Kal spends all that much time looking, but Batman is a beautiful man, and it would quite possibly be harder not to notice these things. Besides, with Batman refusing to do anything but stand by Kal’s side and look down at him with an expression Kal finds himself incapable of deciphering, there actually is little for him to do besides admire his host’s physique. Until, that is, the silence becomes unbearable.

“May I help you?” Kal blurts out.

He has enough time to stammer through half an apology at the ridiculous nature of the question before Batman nods at his legs.

“You kept the color.”

Kal looks down at himself, where the white cotton of his night shirt—Batman’s eyebrows rose when he heard the request—gives way to the skin-tight crimson of Shadow’s uniform, the material thicker than usual but still utterly recognizable in design. He feels himself blush.

“Restructuring it takes some focus,” he admits, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “Altering the color for this seemed like a waste of energy.”

“By ‘this’, I presume you meant getting out of bed before you were supposed to?”

Kal blushes harder, but does not deny it. What would be the point? The evidence is more than damning. What he does instead is brace himself for the return trip, making the suit prop his legs through the motions of standing up, and then blink in surprise when he wobbles and Batman catches his elbow with a bare hand. Kal might well be slightly more aware of the contact than is entirely appropriate.

“Thank you,” he mutters, and focuses on his feet rather than look up at Batman’s face when he hums.

“I have been meaning to ask how you built it for some time, actually,” Batman says after a few steps, glancing down at the suit just long enough for Kal to catch the movement from the corner of his eye.

“Oh, uh...I—I didn’t, actually,” Kal admits. “It’s Zodri technology. I became quite lost during a visit to their Citadel and stumbled onto a prototype of it—it was a genuine accident,” he adds, when Batman’s lips quirk upward.

Before then—six months before then, to be precise—he had been doing what he could with more traditional equipment. The abandoned elevator shaft in his lab had been a pain to go through, and swinging between roofs far scarier than anything Kal would ever care to experience again. That is not a time he will ever truly miss, but it would feel wrong to take credit for a miracle he had no part in, save perhaps being his pathetic self and growing distracted by reflected light in the luckiest of places.

“I think they’d accounted for just about every method of stealing their new technology save for someone strolling through the door and cutting some of the nanites off the prototype. Kryo did more to turn that suit over to my service than I ever did.”

“Criminal oversight on their part,” Batman says, and this time Kal allows himself to smile down at his feet.

“Pride makes a fool of many a man—and you might have noticed the great Houses of Krypton have no shortage of it.”

“Except you.”

Kal remains quiet until they reach his bed again and he can fall on the mattress with very little dignity. He knows the pinch of his lips is too pronounced for Batman to miss it, how unsubtle he is being—how unsubtle he is, as a rule—but there is little else he can do against the wave of shame and tears threatening to submerge him. He looks around the cave instead; the back of it is quite familiar at this point, although Kal has yet to be allowed near the front, let alone the upper level.

None of what he sees seems remotely achievable by one man, let alone quickly, and he forgets to look for a minefield before he asks Batman:

“How long have you been using these facilities?”

“Twenty years,” Batman replies—smooth, controlled. Convinced, possibly, that Kal missed the breath he took before he spoke. “Give or take.”

Kal turns back toward Batman, unable to hide the awe that seizes him—nor anything else, for that matter, though at least Batman is kind enough not to remark on it. There is a pause between them while Kal debates on the merits of asking his next question, but then it becomes apparent there is precious little of his dignity left intact, and Batman was already dismissive of him long before meeting Shadow. Kal might as well ask.

“How did you survive all of this for so long?”

“I am a better fighter than you are,” Batman replies.

Kal’s mouth opens and closes, treacherous heat crawling up his throat and into his eyes like lava bursting out of a reluctant volcano. He turns around, then. Refuses to yield to Batman’s hand on his shoulder.

“Get out,” he manages through the tight fit of his throat.

The mix of relief and disappointment at how easily Batman complies is a bitterly familiar sensation.

Ten days after his hasty departure from Krypton, Kal is allowed to walk under his own power again. He wears the suit, still—although in the form of dark gray _slacks_ rather than Shadow’s form-fitting leggings—and he has to brace himself on Alfred’s arm for it, but his legs are actually up to the task, and that is all that matters.

Kal has not had any significant conversation since his latest attempt to leave the infirmary, for Alfred suggested the day before yesterday that Kryo attempt connecting itself to something the old man called ‘the internet’. The hunit has since been quite busy attempting to download it all and, judging from the fact that it has yet to emerge from the task or send any kind of distress signal, is still at it. As for Batman...he has, so far, kept his distance, a fact Kal found himself altogether more and less bothered by than he would have thought, both at the same time.

“He’s just so—opaque,” Kal tells the old servant when they reach the front of the cave, and Alfred has to make it clear Kal is not to go up the stairs. “I—I understand why he wouldn't want to associate with me, and I don’t intend to force it once he sees fit to have me out of here. I just—well, he _is_ the only person I can talk to around here. Could talk to.”

Of course, ‘have a conversation with’ would be a more appropriate way to phrase it, but still. Being used to a certain state of isolation does not necessarily make it more agreeable to bear. Still, with Batman apparently out of reach for the time being, Alfred remains Kal’s only company, and it would not do to antagonize him. Kal lets himself be steered back toward the rear of the cave, where Batman’s vehicles and medical equipment reside, but does not resist a glance back as soon as the artificial ceiling gives way to the natural width of the cave. (Nor, he notes, does Alfred seem too keen on preventing it.)

It _is_ a weapons room up there—the weapons lined around the walls make that clear—but it is one in name only. In the glass cases in the wall, old armors glare at the void, previous versions of Batman’s uniform preserved like trophies, mementos of what could easily be confused for past glory, if it weren’t for the centerpiece. Kal does not recognize the design. Has no context for the different colors, not enough knowledge of English to recognize the words scrawled in bright yellow all over the torso. He does know a memorial armor when he sees one, though—has walked by his grandmother’s often enough to know the signs. The way the room is oriented around the case; the slight falter in Alfred’s touch when Kal pauses. The way Batman purposefully avoids looking at it as he comes down the stairs wound around it and locks eyes with Kal instead.

He is much less surprised than the would have anticipated when Batman comes down to his level of the cave and relieves Alfred of his duty. For a while, they walk. Their footsteps do not echo, the cave too well-engineered for that, but the silence between them is so absolute that Kal almost imagines that they do. The more frightened side of him longs for small talk—an update on Kryo; a remark on his outfit, oh-so-similar to what Batman himself wears.

What he gets instead is silence. A short breath—the last one before drowning—and then Batman’s voice, almost offensively casual:

“It seems to me like I came across as quite—cavalier during our last conversation,” he says.

Kal has not bothered with the royal forms of Ellon since he was on Earth, Shadow’s words simpler to maintain and devoid of the ghosts attached to Kal’s more formal speech. Batman however, has either failed to notice—unlikely—or refused to acknowledge the change, sticking to the ones Kal first taught him. They do not make the gap between them quite as wide as it was when the man insisted on addressing Kal as a prince—merely enough to tell a Citadel Lord apart from a Mountain Lord of equal riches—but they do imply some form of superiority on Kal’s part; and tonight, more than any other night, Kal wonders whether they are a misguided attempt to preserve his pride or a form of deliberate mockery.

He does not dare to ask, however, and only hums in response, eyes still firmly on his feet as he follows Batman’s lead down the walkway.

“I did not mean to offend you when I compared—”

“That was not the problem,” Kal retorts, anger flaring with the abrupt certainty that Batman is fully aware of that, even though those words die in his throat before he can truly consider saying them. “Your superior skills were never in contest. But I have—I was only Shadow for eight years. Eight! And it nearly—”

Kal breaks off. Pauses to breathe through the enormity of what he has just said. What he does not want to think about. He did not _mean_ for things to work out in such a way, but then Batman—Kal did not exactly care enough to put much effort into preventing that outcome, either.

“I am not—I was not _trying_ to—” Kal pauses again. Breathes in the scent of chilly water and underground moisture. Then, keeping a tight leash on his tone: “I was not working toward a particular goal, but I know what I risked, and I know what I did or did not do. I—I tried to be more like you. I wish I could be more like you—that I could...help you, somehow. But I cannot be Shadow anymore. I wish I could but I—”

Kal hisses, swallowing against the hard stone in his throat, but does not find it in himself to say the rest. To acknowledge what Batman figured out days ago. He takes the last few steps to the infirmary doors instead, leaning on the threshold to get away from the unbearable heat of Batman’s hand on his elbow.

(Away from the bone-deep wish that he could afford to lean into it as much as he wants to.)

“I already have help,” Batman says after a heavy pause. Then, when Kal can’t help but glance toward the cave’s upper level: “Had help.”

Batman does not turn around, and so Kal does not look at the empty armor again. He looks at Batman instead—the wrinkles in his brow, around his eyes. The lines around his mouth that might follow suit soon. He sees the tension around Batman’s mouth, and the very tip of a scar peeking out of his shirt collar—the rough lines of his hands so at odds with the fine fabrics he favors when not in his nightly uniform. How many years of climbing rooftops in the night does it take to create a man like him? What sort of will? Nothing that Kal possesses, that much has been made clear, but that does not make him any less desirous to figure the answers out.

“I trained him,” Batman says after a long pause, angling his body away from the armor at the front of the cave, his gaze away from Kal. “Worked with him. Then he died.”

Kal makes himself hold Batman’s gaze, though the gesture costs him more than he would have thought. It is the first time time Kal sees that sort of harsh resolve on Batman’s uncovered face; but not, he suspects, the first time it has graced the man’s features.

“We will bring you back to full health,” Batman says at last, the tone of his voice leaving no room for discussion, “and then I will help you reach a destination of your choosing. Our contacts within the Green Lanterns have to be good for something.”

Kal nods, and wonders why admitting that he would very much like to remain on Earth feels too momentous to voice.

It comes as a rather significant surprise, to Kal, that that particular conversation with Batman should make things easier for him, but that is still the end result. After all, if even the partner Batman trained himself was not skilled enough to survive, how was Shadow—with his minimal training, his isolation, his poor grasp on the prerequisites of a vigilante’s life—ever going to do this for much longer? It is luck, pure and simple, that allowed him to survive that long, and realizing he never truly had control over it is—it makes it easier to focus on the present, if nothing else. When Kryo finally finishes downloading the internet after three days spent on the task, Kal throws himself into learning English with the energy of a man with absolutely nothing else to do.

It goes both faster and slower than Kal would have expected—the grammar is much simpler than Council’s, to say nothing of Ellon, but English phonetics are...well, they exist. Kal keeps stumbling on some of them, and no amount of self-quizzing or perusing the resources Kryo managed to compile can erase the fact that he does not actually have that many occasions to practice spoken English, except during Alfred’s visits around mealtimes. On the upside, Kal is getting fairly good at distinguishing the nuanced tastes of broths and soups.

“What do have?” he asks Alfred that evening while they set the table.

There is little doubt, in his mind, that Alfred would rather be performing domestic tasks alone—the Gods know no servant on Krypton would ever allow a noble to help them in their daily work—but Kal is not a prince anymore, and he does have some practice with pretending not to understand a rule so he can get what he needs. All he has to do is to think of this as a mission—call up some of Shadow’s strength of will—and here he is, twenty days into his indefinite stay on Earth and almost able to set a table. He tries not to think too much about what his family would think if they realized how much he is enjoying this.

“‘What are we having’,” Alfred corrects as he brings his tray carrier over to the tiny table.

Kal recognizes the word ‘soup’ and some form of negation, which, combined with the new eating implements, give him some grounds to hope for solid food...a wish fulfilled when Alfred lifts the cover for the main dish, and Kal discovers an array of colorful vegetables with a simple sauce, most of which—he assumes—he has had as a soup before. He takes his seat at the table just as Batman enters the cave, and doesn’t let his smile drop until after they have both started on their salad.

“Is there a problem?” Batman asks after a couple more bites.

“I think that will depend on you,” Kal admits, voice growing too thin for his taste. He clears his throat, and makes himself continue: “I was...well, in all honesty, I’ve been growing rather bored here, so in an effort to distract myself and learn more about this planet, I asked Kryo—”

“You had it search for information on the Batman,” Batman says, voice gone entirely flat.

Kal has to steel himself for it, but he nods and keep his eyes level with Batman's anyway. He may not have had the intention to do any thorough reading—all he wanted was the name of Batman’s city, since the subject has only rarely come up between them and, when it has, has brought more grunts than answers. Still, snooping is snooping, and there is no point in denying it now.

“What I failed to anticipate,” Kal tells Batman, knuckles tightening on his cutlery, “was that Kryo would take Batman to mean you as a person rather than just your vigilante persona, so—”

“You know who I am.”

“I know what your civilian name is,” Kal corrects. “I didn’t read further than that. I also had Kryo destroy the file, and gave it firm instructions never to share that information with anyone unless you explicitly permitted it. I have no intention of exposing you, you have my word. But I thought you should know.”

There is a long, long silence while Batman chews on his salad with the sort of care that used to have politicians on their toes when Kal's aunt and uncle displayed it. Kal watches the man’s precise movements, the deliberate absence of tension in the line of his shoulders—his neck, his mouth—and fights the urge to curl in on himself as if he truly thought Batman would hit him.

“So,” Batman says eventually, tone so even Kal has to wonder if it is truly natural, “you know—”

“I know your name is Bruce Wayne,” Kal says, glad for some reason that Alfred isn’t here to overhear, “but nothing else.”

“Good,” Bru—Batman says.

Then he sets his fork and knife down with infinite care, dabs his lips clean with a delicate napkin, and excuses himself from the table with his plate only half finished.

“I talked to a friend,” Batman says as he enters the infirmary the next day. “She is willing to take you in.”

Kal blinks, entirely unprepared for this conversation, although he does have a sneaking suspicion that he knows exactly what prompted it.

“You are well on your way to recovery,” Batman continues without even a hint of hesitation, “and we have vetted enough Earth foods you can eat for you to survive outside this cave. There will be things to watch out for as you decide where you wish to go next, but short of keeping you here for another six months, this is about as safe as we can make you for the next step of that journey.”

“Of course,” Kal murmurs with a nod, not trusting his voice to come out right.

He _has_ been getting a little stir-crazy, lately, and it will do him good to see other parts of Earth, especially if he wants to stay here. It will be nice to meet this friend of Batman’s, not to mention make new experiences for himself. Nevertheless, the timing of it is—it stings, just a little. But then Kal does not have any ground to stand on here, and so he listens as Batman tells him about a place called Kansas and a woman named Martha Kent.

“She helped me when I had nowhere to go,” Batman says in lieu of explaining how they met, or what he was doing several hundred miles away from his city in the first place. “We stayed in touch afterwards.”

Kal nods, wondering whether—and if yes, how—Martha Kent knows the name of the man she saved. It is possible; Kal can’t imagine Batman accepting anything less than absolute privacy, unless he were unconscious and cut off from Alfred entirely. But it sounds just as likely that the vigilante would have kept his face a secret even after Mrs. Kent helped patch him up. Kal will have to wait and see.

“Obviously, you do not have to agree,” Batman says, when Kal, lost in thought, misses his cue, “if you would rather not risk the security breach—”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Kal cuts in, blinking once at the statement. “I trust your judgment. If you trust her, I am satisfied.”

Batman pauses to stare at Kal, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn down, and this time Kal widens his eyes in question. He does not truly expect a response—is not really surprised when Batman shakes his head rather than answer—but he would be lying if he said he was not curious about the reaction. Though with the way things have been going the past few days, Kal is starting to suspect this will merely join the long list of things he will never understand about Batman.

“The only problem,” Batman says after a moment, tone almost circumspect, as if he expects Kal to do something entirely outlandish any minute now, “is discretion. There is a shapeshifter in the Justice League who made sure Batman’s absence remained unnoticed, but Bruce Wayne has only been back on Earth for a few weeks. Transportation is not a problem, but—”

“Oh,” Kal cuts in when he catches Batman’s meaning, “my suit has a stealth function.”

He chuckles when Batman raises an eyebrow, but orders the suit to switch mode anyway. The camouflage is far from Kal’s favorite feature—he has yet to go through something as unnerving as being unable to distinguish the shape of his own body, even with floating hands—but it is efficient, and, once Batman tests it, proves decently resistant to basic scanning methods.

“Well,” the man says once he has gathered all the information he needed about this particular feature, “that solves a few problems.”

It takes a bit of time for Batman to organize everything—some of it spent verifying Kal’s affirmations regarding Kryo’s anti-gravitational properties—but on the twenty-fifth day of Kal’s stay on Earth he, Batman and Alfred finally depart for Kansas.

The first leg of the trip is entirely silent, owing as much to Kal’s current invisibility—and the subsequent need to pretend he doesn’t exist, lest someone think Bruce Wayne is losing his mind—as to Batman’s foul mood. Why that should be, Kal has no idea. Didn’t the man want him gone, after all? He should be happy. There is, of course, a chance that he is simply unhappy Kal gets to see the inside of his house—glass and metal everywhere. Not a spot of dust, not a single personal object left in view. Kal’s knowledge of Terran homes is practically nonexistent, but even then he fails to see what Bruce could find so embarrassing about it. It is almost as if no one lived there; what harm could possibly come of Kal seeing this? Still, it is clear Batman is uncomfortable the whole time it takes them to cross the house, and so Kal does not linger, nor attempt to strike up a conversation.

The sky outside is overcast, pewter gray rather than the deep ocher Kal is used to; but the smell of water in the air is the same, and the wind feels almost as cool on his skin as it did back in the Ellon mountains. The first fat drops of rain spattering on Batman’s car—a sleek black vehicle, which, if it weren’t for the wheels, would not have stood out too terribly on Krypton—are like a balm to Kal’s soul, the sky at least trying to match itself to the heavy feeling in his chest. He is, after all, leaving the first home he has ever known on Earth...which may not have been much of a home at all, not in the traditional sense, but it was a familiar place, and comfortable, by now. It is only to be expected that Kal would feel something like a pinch of nostalgia when forced to leave it.

Despite all that, things progress smoothly until they reach the airport itself. It is not so much the look of it that poses a problem. The pale gray shade and blocky shape of it are a far cry from Kryptonian architecture’s organic lines and darker colors, but that was only to be expected. The aircraft, however...Kal shudders.

“When you said ‘ _jet_ ’,” he tells Batman under his breath, “I imagined something a little more advanced.”

“Are you scared?” Batman asks at a similar volume, angling himself so it looks like he’s talking to Alfred.

“At the risk of offending you,” Kal replies, unable to stop himself from sounding cross, “these look positively primitive to me.”

Batman’s snort is quiet, but the earpiece he wears makes it more than easy to pick up on. Kal, if he is honest with himself—which he tries to be, as a rule—is perfectly capable of admitting the fear seems ridiculous. He has made jumps far more dangerous than this, after all. Gods, if nothing else, Kal himself finds his own fear ridiculous...but the fact remains that he would much rather be swinging between the roofs of El than about to board one of these things. Even riding a h’mori as ill-tempered as H’raka seems abruptly preferable to flinging himself into the air on the back of what is, essentially, a spacious missile.

There is nothing to be done about it, though. Even were Batman willing to consider a last-minute change in plans, which seems unlikely given what Kal knows of the man, he did describe his jet as being at the forefront of technology. There is no smoother ride to be found on the planet, at least not on such short notice, and so Kal swallows the discomfort and follows Batman across the tarmac and up the steps with a weight in his stomach.

“Do you truly feel that uncomfortable with it?” Batman asks once he is seated, several rows away from Kal. “I’ve seen the beasts you ride on Krypton. Those can hardly be any less uncertain a ride than this."

“You’re right, for the most part,” Kal has to admit.

He still has vivid—and terrifying—memories of his first ride, seven years old and clutching the pommel of his mother’s saddle with white-knuckled fingers as the wind blew through his hair and swallowed his screams. But he had strong arms to hold him in place then, and a harness...and on the one occasion when he did fall, a trained animal with significant fondness for him that wasted no time in snatching him out of the sky.

“I would still prefer to fly on a living animal.”

“I am afraid we do not have any of those available,” Batman says, and Kal smiles under the helmet, thinner than he would like.

There is a pause, and then Batman says:

“You should take the opportunity to read up on Kansas while we fly. It would do you good to know some things about your new place of residence.”

“What is it like?” Kal asks, eyes drifting to where Batman is doing an excellent impression of a man hard at work—although for what reason, Kal can’t quite figure.

“Not this rainy,” Batman retorts with a jerk of his head toward the window, where the storm has picked up in intensity, streams of water gliding over the tiny windows. “And very flat.”

Nothing like El, then. Kal, abruptly glad for his invisibility, hums and braces himself for the pressure of takeoff.

The sky when they land is, if at all possible, even more uniformly gray than it was back in Gotham. Batman and Alfred both assure Kal the weather—although not the humidity—is usually better in the summer, but it does nothing to prevent Kal from longing for El’s dry mountain air. Earth, so far, has felt strangely like a soup, and Kal makes a mental note to include that in his next letter to Kara. It is a comfort to think this, in that it alleviates the loneliness of the place and allows Kal to remain quiet and composed as he climbs into Batman’s rented car. It still doesn’t quite make up for the foreignness of the landscape—the endless swathes of yellowed crops waiting for harvest, the ruler-straight lines of roads that have never had to find their way through knife-sharp rocks.

There is a turn, eventually—well, there are several turns, on several roads sitting at ninety-degrees angles from each other, but this one is an actual curve. It weaves through two fields: one mostly empty save for the yellowing grass on the ground and a four-legged mammal with a rather long neck; the next much wider and more trampled, filled with at least fifty adult mammals of a different sort. They are much rounder, for a start, brown where the other animal is black, and obviously heavier, even from a distance. The horns, though proportionally much shorter than a hurak’s, add to the impressive ensemble, and Kal can’t resist asking—in Ellon, for the sake of his own comfort—“What are these things, on the left?”

“Cows,” Batman replies. “Do you like them?”

“I think so,” Kal says with a shrug he knows Batman can’t see. “They look majestic.”

Batman chuckles at the word, and Kal is about to ask why when Alfred announces, “Here we are.”

Kal turns around and, taking advantage of his invisibility and the impossibility of his wearing a seatbelt while camouflaged, leans forward until he can fit most of his torso between the front seats and take a look at his home for the next undefined period of time.

He notices the red building—a barn, Alfred calls it—first. It sits to the left of the land, next to a larger blue building. Both are made of wood, both could probably use a new coat of paint, but only the blue one seems to have direct access to the left-hand field with its many cows—a shed of some sort, then? Behind them, a field of gray-golden plants lines the horizon, a few green trees sprinkled in the distance in a stark contrast to the pewter-gray sky. Kal follows the lines of it to the right, where the other animal—a horse, Batman says—grazes with a certain nonchalance, and from there to what must be the house.

It must have been white, originally, though age and the ambient light have turned it gray. A cubic building, two stories tall, with symmetrical windows on the facade and a comfortable front porch with a cushioned bench on the left. Golden light spills from inside, the sky overcast enough to make mid-afternoon feel like evening, and while Kal’s stomach hasn’t quite stopped lurching since he got off Batman’s plane, the sight of the open door makes something warm curl in his chest, and he smiles as he wills his suit into the shape of more ordinary clothes...and then, as he walks, there is a click of wood, the front door opens, and Martha Kent emerges from the depths of her home.

She is a fairly tall woman in a flower-patterned shirt and faded jeans whose loose black-and-gray hair floats in the wind even as she opens an umbrella against the first fat drops of rain. Kal, a step behind Alfred and two behind Batman, watches her push her hair out of the way and hurry towards them in plastic clogs, raising her umbrella high over her head and bypassing Batman entirely in order to shield...Kal. He blinks, surprised, and blushes when he fails to understand what she’s saying.

She laughs it off though, fussing gently at Kal’s shoulder and exchanging what he can only assume are remarks about the weather—he thinks he hears the word "rain" in there—with Bruce and Alfred. Together they hurry inside and shed their muddy shoes under the porch, Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rising when she notices the nanobots starting in on the cleaning process. Then Kal is ushered inside the house and steered to the right toward a low couch upholstered in blue, a coffee table made of pale wood sitting in front of it. He stands just past the threshold, not daring to go further yet, and watches Mrs. Kent all but force a towel on Bru—Batman and Alfred each, the three of them amiably chatting all the while.

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say Alfred and Mrs. Kent are amiably chatting. Bruce—Kal was really trying to keep calling him Batman, fairly sure a switch wouldn’t be appreciated, but the man trying to finesse his way out from under Mrs. Kent’s attention is clearly far too flustered to be Batman. He loses the fight, Alfred and Mrs. Kent clearly having decided to team up and lovingly bully him into self-care, and is about done toweling himself dry when there is a loud bang and the sound of metal crashing to the ground, and then Kryo appears on the other side of the screen door. Kal hides his face in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells the assembly in English, “I forgot...stop?”

All three Terrans are looking at him, now, and he switches to Ellon in an attempt to at least spare himself the embarrassment of not knowing how to convey a simple thought.

“I forgot to turn off the proximity protocols—they kept it stable in the trunk, but—”

“But now my _car_ is ruined,” Bruce sighs—and yes, it _is_ still Bruce.

It is...uncertain, whether this change happened before and Kal did not notice it, or whether Bruce was unable—or unwilling?—to be anything other than Batman while Kal was in the cave. Regardless, there is something different in the slant of his shoulders now, a—not a _relaxation,_ exactly. Kal doubts, sometimes, that Bruce even knows how to truly relax—not that he is one to pull the first feather. Still, from the outside it seems like a certain lessening of tension has taken place, and it isn’t something Kal remembers seeing before. The contrast is subtle, but real, and it’s enough for Kal to only mildly panic during Bruce’s five-second pause.

“Well,” Bruce says afterwards, already gesturing toward the door, “I suppose we might as well let it in.”

He does, and Kal is grateful for it, as it means the rest of the conversation, though in rapid English, is perfectly understandable for him.

“This is Kryo,” Bruce tells Mrs. Kent, “Kal’s personal supercomptuer-slash-butler. It’ll handle translations as long as they’re needed.”

Kal gives Mrs. Kent a polite nod, and can’t stop himself from blinking when she turns to him with a wide grin—the kind that makes people’s eyes crinkle, even. The force of it is enough of a surprise that Kal misses Mrs. Kent’s words entirely, never mind Kryo’s superimposed translation. He’s still trying to collect himself enough to ask his new hostess to repeat herself when he finds himself gently but inescapably directed to an open kitchen and its well-worn table, its wooden cupboards and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. On Mrs. Kent’s instruction, Kal sits down on one of the pale wooden chairs, and tries not to scowl when a look at Bruce reveals the man all but smirking at him. Kal blinks, blushes, and then does his best to convey ‘I know you’re just glad not to be the main focus anymore’ without opening his mouth.

“I was thoroughly briefed on your food restrictions,” Mrs. Kent says as she deposits a thick slice of apple pie and a mug of coffee in front of Kal, forcing him to turn away from Bruce—who he could swear is starting to look a little nervous at the edges.

“I may have sent along a few allergy warnings,” Bruce says, and Kal doesn’t need to turn around in order to picture Alfred’s face as he deadpans:

“Six pages of them.”

Kal...has some practice, controlling what sort of emotions he lets other people see. Bruce-as-Batman may have been witness to more slips than anyone else in the world, but for the most part Kal has managed to keep the worst of his inadequacies to himself—often by design, but sometimes also thanks to happy accidents. It’s the same thing that happens now: Kal’s nerves burst out of him in a short, sharp bout of laughter before the blush blooms in his cheeks—his forehead, his ears—and spreads warmth all through his chest. Out of every new thing he has tried since he came to Earth, after all, only two ingredients have caused him any trouble, and even then nothing worse than a long sneezing fit and a slight bout of nausea...nothing to fill six pages with, really.

(But then, he notes, he is sipping on a coffee with just the right dose of sugar, and Mrs. Kent didn’t have to ask him how he took it.)

“Your coffee is excellent,” Kal tells Mrs. Kent once he’s mostly recovered from his surprise. “Thank you very much for having me here."

He doesn’t think he imagines the way Bruce seems to relax on the other side of the table, but before he can make sure of what he’s seen, Mrs. Kent all but beams at him, and Kal doesn’t hesitate before answering in kind. In all honesty, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, even if his body hadn’t barreled into the response without consulting him: how could he not smile at someone who feels like a small sun took a kryton form and decided to warm him specifically? It feels too good here, too warm not to smile—and then blush as red as the sun when Mrs. Kent all but coos at him.

“Well,” she says, “aren’t you a sweetheart.”

“Why, Mr. El,” Alfred murmurs, “it seems you have been adopted.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Kal retorts, and then he takes a deep breath in.

Alfred—he doesn’t know. Of course he can’t know, or something of it would have shown, but the reminder—the reopening of that particular wound here, of all places—Kal blinks, throat tighter than he thought it would be.

“I...apologize,” Alfred says, clearly perplexed by Kal’s reaction, which is evidently not as subtle as he wishes it were. “I didn’t mean any offense—”

“There’s nothing wrong with being adopted,” Mrs. Kent says, gentle but unyielding, and Kal blushes harder, stares at the green material of his coffee mug.

“I know,” he admits, relieved when his voice doesn’t quite break on the word. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just—I wasn’t, and—I thought you knew,” he finishes lamely, barely daring a glance at Bruce.

“Knew what?”

Kal blushes harder than he remembers blushing in his entire life before now, the heat of it prickling at his armpits and the palms of his hands. It is bad enough to know this about himself—bad enough to know what the rest of Krypton thinks of it—but to have to explain it here—

“That I’m—that I was...not adopted,” he says, cowering in the face of the revelation.

There is a long pause, during which Kal is quite sure significant glances are exchanges over his head, before Bruce asks, “Kal, what exactly does it mean to you when you hear ‘adopted’?”

“Well,” Kal manages through a tight throat, “properly grown, of course.”

He dares to look up, then, and can’t help a frown when he realizes all three of his companions look utterly puzzled.

“In the growing genesis chambers, in Kandor?”

Another pause, and then Bruce’s features shiver through half a second of shock.

“Wait,” he says, “grown, as in...growing a plant?”

“Well, yes,” Kal replies, nerves turning his shame to impatience—if he is to go through this humiliating an ordeal, he might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. “Normal families put in a request to the Wise Council specifying their social status, their respective Guilds, and the child’s chosen Guild; wait for the the engineering to be done; and pick their child up three weeks after harvest. But my parents were—they decided to—to—grow me at home,” Kal finishes with a dejected sigh, unable to remember the words to describe what he is.

“You mean your mother got pregnant with you,” Bruce says after a short, stunned silence.

The archaisms sound even worse than they usually do in Kryo’s electronic voice, and Kal wonders if having this conversation entirely in Ellon would have been better or worse. He nods.

“And then she gave birth to you.”

Kal nods again.

“Kal,” Bruce says, more careful of his words than Kal has ever heard him, “that’s how everyone is born on Earth.”

Kal raises his head so fast he actually does pull a muscle, and winces at the pain. From the other side of the table, Bruce gives him something that’s almost a smile, though his eyebrows are still caught in a frown, and Kal swallows, unable to figure out what, exactly, is pressing so hard at his throat. He thinks, briefly, of the whispers that used to follow him back in El—and then breathes a long sigh of relief when he realizes he’ll never have to deal with that here. No matter how he may feel about this whole thing—and that is definitely something he will need to pay some attention to in the future—this is an undeniably wonderful thing to learn about Earth, and he has to wipe at his eyes before he can say:

“Well, that’s—that’s good news.”

He doesn’t dare try to say more right away, not when he has no idea what he even _wants_ to say; but fortunately the other three, if they have questions, keep them to themselves. Silence settles between them. It is not uncomfortable, exactly, but it is heavy with the strange tension of high differences in emotional states in a group—until the oven beeps.

“Right!” Mrs. Kent exclaims, rising from her seat and reaching for a towel on one of the cupboard handles, “I’d forgotten about dinner.”

Kal goes to offer his help when she turns to take a dish of what she calls lasagna—‘approved ingredients only!’—out of her oven, but finds himself promptly shooed back, while Alfred uses the confusion to retrieve plates and cutlery from a different cupboard. Kal smiles almost despite himself when Mrs. Kent gives the butler a playful glare, but otherwise allows himself to be served.

He shouldn’t—really, he shouldn’t. He isn’t a prince here, and if he is going to live as a regular person, he has to learn how to perform regular tasks, too. He is, however, aware that he has no idea how to actually help in this situation, and still reeling from the things he learned tonight besides. Perhaps it _is_ best if he sits down and processes things for a while. He can always learn to wash dishes later on, after all. He’s no Batman, but he did survive as Shadow for a while: he can probably out-stubborn Mrs. Kent if he needs to.

In the meantime, Kal watches his companions set the table. Bruce, clearly used to Alfred and Mrs. Kent’s bickering about menial tasks—playful, but with an edge—has sat back too. Kal is abruptly struck by the realization that this, all of it, has been tailored specifically for him. Not for a prince, not for the House of El, but him, Kal. And what’s more, out of the people who were instrumental in creating this entire situation, the only one who even knows for sure that Kal is of royal blood—Alfred, he’s quite sure, has made an accurate guess based on Kryo, but hasn't said anything—has never paid any more attention to that than external circumstances required.

That is a first, in Kal’s life. Oh, he can’t claim to have lacked any material thing he might have wanted, of course! But if there was ever a time when all the people in his life worked together to make a situation more agreeable to him, without any other considerations in mind, Kal has forgotten it. This time, he has to sniffle when he wipes his eyes again.

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Kent says as she sits down, “is everything okay?”

Kal, eyes still firmly glued to his plate—and frankly unwilling to raise his gaze for the time being—nods.

“Yes, thank you,” he says after a shaky breath. Then, because English has yet to prove capable of conveying the full meaning of what Kal wants to say, he adds in Ellon: “You are very kind to me. Thank you.”

Kryo can’t, of course, translate the grammatical forms Kal used—there is nothing in English grammar to indicate the respect due to a benefactor—but Mrs. Kent pats his hand anyway.

Once dinner is finished and the dishes done—again, without Kal’s help, owing to Alfred’s absolutely devious use of the phrase ‘are you questioning my abilities?’—Kal tries to have a hand in making up his room, at least, but finds himself turned down again. Mrs. Kent’s mouth quirks into an amused smile as she tells him, “Stop acting like this is going to be a permanent situation. Tonight you’re a guest and I’ll be treating you like one—tomorrow you become part of the household and _then_ I’ll put you to work.”

Kal, if his host’s smile is any indication, doesn’t quite succeed in hiding his relief at the words, but that doesn’t bother him in the least. In fact, the satisfaction of knowing he won’t remain an imposition on Mrs. Kent for much longer is enough to settle his nerves for the most part, and he goes back down the stairs to the living room and then the front porch, where Bruce is watching rain fall down on the land.

“I told you so,” he says in Ellon when Kal joins him, “you cannot win against her.”

“We shall see,” Kal replies.

In front of them, the steady drizzle has turned storm-dulled greens and grayed gold even darker, puddles slowly growing in the front garden. It’s quite unusual to have that much rain at once, Mrs. Kent said during dinner, sparking a conversation regarding Earth’s climate change. That is a topic Kal wants to look into, eventually, the dangers of changing an entire planet’s composition as far beyond measure on Earth as they are on Krypton...right now, however, the rain does a good job of masking the landscape’s best features and promises, thus admirably mirroring his mood. That, however, is another thing he chooses not to look at too closely for tonight, acutely aware that he may not have that much else to worry about in the upcoming days.

“You should know,” Bruce says after a bit, “that there is a significant chance she will not allow you out of her office until she has built a space dedicated to you.”

Kal protested, at first, when Mrs. Kent mentioned rearranging her study. He is more than capable of—and entirely willing to—sleep on the couch. Mrs. Kent, however, looked offended when he suggested it, ordering him to stop his nonsense and insisting that she was not yet old enough to have forgotten the proper way to treat people, especially when they’re going to live with her. Kal suspects the surprise he felt at Mrs. Kent's vehemence didn’t play as big a part in his inability to tell her no as he would like to think.

“Was she like this with you?” Kal asks after a while, sticking with the comfort of Ellon for now. “When you first came to her, I mean.”

“Yes and no,” Bruce replies, leaning sideways into one of the porch’s support beams. “My injuries were worse than yours when she first brought me here, and she put a great deal of effort into caring for me until I could be moved back to Gotham.”

“But?” Kal prompts when Bruce’s pause lasts longer than anticipated.

“I am not as...disciplined a patient as you are. Or an exile.”

Kal breathes in, more sharply than he meant to, at the reminder, but Batman is not wrong. He is an exiled man. It would take a tremendous change in Krypton’s governments—both local and planetary—before anyone would consider even pushing back against what is sure to be a call for his death. And even were that to happen, Kal highly doubts they would allow him back anyway—not without debating it for several years, at any rate. The chances of him seeing Krypton again are…slim.

“Did you receive any news from your cousin?”

Kal nods. Even with Krypton's considerably advanced technology, it takes time for messages to travel from there to Earth, and then back. Writing to Kara—letting her know he was alive and on the way to a full recovery—was one of the first things he did when he woke up, not ten days after leaving Krypton. From there it took almost five Green Lantern Coalition Days—roughly the same length as Kryptonian days, and no more than three hours shorter than Earth days—for his message to travel through a multitude of relatively short-distance channels and reach Kara. Based on this, and knowledge of Kara’s constraints and habits, Kal isn’t expecting her second letter for another four or five Earth days, at best. Still, it makes for a piece of home to look forward to, and the thought is enough to bring a small smile to his lips.

“She’s doing fine,” he tells Batman. “The official version of evens is that Kal-El’s decision to elope—”

“Elope?”

“To run away,” Kal says, and doesn’t allow himself to falter before he adds: “Generally with the intent to marry—or at least live with—whoever you are eloping with.”

Bruce nods once, sharp, stiffer than he was a minute ago. It’s a bit of a surprise, considering how unruffled he usually is, and even Kal realizes the cover story is nothing more than a convenient way to leave Kara free to continue her work with the Dark Sun directly. Yes, it makes Kal want to blush, but it isn’t like his threshold for blushing is as high as it should be in the first place.

“I assume by ‘official version of events’, you mean the government is covering up your identity,” Batman says, several seconds late but in a steady voice.

“A fair assumption,” Kal says, stomach twisting, gaze falling on his hands.

Kara didn’t share any details about that—she didn’t share much of any detail at all, in fact, most of her letter dutifully comprised of reproach and lamenting his terrible life decisions, the feeling of betrayal that filled her when she learned of his secret identity. The shame it would bring their family, if any of this were to be made public. It was hardly the most pleasant thing Kal had read in his life, but at least it had allowed Kara to signal that she was safe, and that’s really all Kal could have hoped for. Given the circumstances, his present situation is, quite frankly, clearly superior to what he used to assume discovery would bring.

“And Shadow?”

“Soon to be tried,” Kal says, fingers squeezing harder at the railing. “Then...the death penalty, I imagine.”

There is no guessing who the man who will play his part in the trial might be, and no room for Kara to tell him, either. That, and any other question Kal has—how Kara managed to keep her involvement a secret even after the bug’s pilot saw her face, what the Wise Council will do to El after all of this—will most likely remain unanswered forever, or until they can meet one another again.

He is bracing himself for the moment when he needs to explain all of that to Bruce, but, whether because Bruce has reached that conclusion himself or because he is trying to be considerate—most likely the former, Kal thinks with unexpected amusement—Bruce doesn’t ask.

“It...might sound callous,” Kal confesses after several seconds have passed with only the sound and smell of rain between them, “but part of me is glad to be here.”

“It is perfectly normal to rejoice at being alive,” Bruce points out in a soft voice, and Kal smiles.

“You’re right. But I’m particularly glad to be alive _here_.”

He doesn’t have the time to check whether he imagined Bruce’s blush or not before the front door opens and bathes them both in golden light.

“The room is ready,” Alfred tells them, nothing but a dark silhouette in the light from the house, and the sight makes Kal smile.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Kal tells him. He turns back to Bruce then, nerves tingling without knowing why, and says in Ellon: “I believe that’s my cue to retire for the night...I assume the two of you won’t be long here after that?”

“No,” Bruce confirms. “I have things to deal with in Gotham.”

“Of course,” Kal agrees, the smile easier to summon than the end of his career as Shadow ought to permit. “We’ll stay in touch, then?”

Bruce nods. Kal waits a beat, but no further words come, and so he shuffles his feet a little before saying:

“Goodnight, Bruce.”

“Goodnight.”

A smile for Alfred.

“Goodnight, Alfred. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re quite welcome, Mister El,” Alfred replies with a small smile of his own.

Kal nods again and steps inside, climbing the stairs two at a time to get to the landing. There are only three doors there: the bathroom at the end of the corridor—open and lit, as if in waiting—Mrs. Kent’s bedroom door, and, to the left, the smallest room. Kal steps inside to find it crowded with rows and rows of shelves filled with binders and what Kal assumes must be boxes of files. A large black desk and its accompanying wheeled chair have been pushed to the not-so-far left of the room to make way for a brown fold-out armchair currently in bed position. Kal takes in the sun-faded pale yellow paint on the walls, the plaid blanket folded at the foot of the bed. There are pictures and other documents in frames on the walls, trinkets on the shelves...and, comfortingly enough, a potted plant on the windowsill.

“I know, it’s not much,” Mrs. Kent says in a rueful tone, probably mistaking Kal’s silence for disappointment, “but at least it’s comfortable.”

“Oh, no,” Kal protests, surprised himself at his sincerity, “no, it’s perfect. Really,” he insists when Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rise high on her forehead, “it is. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kent.”

Mrs. Kent bursts out laughing at that, growing three shades pinker in the space of a second.

“Sorry,” she says immediately after, “I’m sorry. You’re quite welcome, but Mrs. Kent was my mother-in-law—you have to call me Martha.”

“Oh,” Kal says, pleasantly confused, “of course. Thank you, Martha. And please, do call me Kal.”

Martha nods again, still smiling—it makes it impossible for Kal to do anything but smile in response, even when Kryo all but buzzes in protest.

“Well, I have to go see Bruce and Alfred off,” Martha says after a puzzled look at the hunit, “but please make yourself at home—I’ve left you a toothbrush and something to sleep in on the toilet seat. Goodnight, Kal.”

“Goodnight, Martha.”

Kal watches her make her way to the stairs with a smile on his face, then turns back to Kryo, unable to restrain himself from frowning.

“Kryo,” he tells the hunit in Ellon, “I understand this is not part of your usual protocol, but you’ll have to get used to people calling me by my first name here.”

“You have lost the diction of a prince,” Kryo starts, but Kal shrugs it off.

“So? In case it escaped your notice, I also lost the status of a prince. Krypton has no relevance here, and even if it did, Earth would be Green Lantern territory. On this planet, I’m just an ordinary man, and people will address me like one. Please don’t protest unless I tell you to.”

“Very well, Kal-El,” Kryo says, and Kal sighs.

Hunits are not, generally speaking, programmed to emulate emotion, but that has never stopped anyone from feeling like they have expressed some, especially Kal. Still, he ignores the perceived disapproval to look inside his bedroom and sigh.

“I don’t believe you’ll fit in there,” he tells Kryo. “Not comfortably, anyway. Would you mind staying above the stairs for the night? You’d be free to wander, but the corridor is too small for you to stay there.”

“Of course,” Kryo says.

It bobs in place and goes to settle itself in the one place where it won’t bother anyone, and Kal nods at it before going to prepare for the night. The bathroom is small—barely the size of his closet back on Krypton. In fact, Kal is quite sure he could fit the entire floor in his old rooms. The equipment is foreign, and the shade of blue on the walls would be considered excessive and gauche on Krypton...yet he looks at it all—runs a hand over the worn-soft fabric of the nightclothes Martha picked out for him—and smiles harder than he remembers smiling in a long time.

Despite both Bruce's and Martha’s promises of sun-kissed summers, the next week is made of rain, rain, more rain, and the occasional light drizzle. It has the potential to become a real problem for the crops, and Kal, still something of a botanist even this far away from home and the reasons he started studying plants in the first place, spends more than a little time staring at the pouring skies by Martha’s side.

She didn’t lie at all, that first night: rain or no, there are things to be done on the farm. They feed the cows in the rain—and discover, to everybody’s surprise, that the animals have an inexplicable fondness for Kal and specifically for trying to lick his face. They repair a damaged section of fencing in the rain, and drive to the vet’s clinic and back in the rain—subsequently spending a good half-hour out of the the rain but in the shower to clean up Martha’s newly neutered dog. They spend so much time outside under the downpour Kal’s skin itches afterward, pinker and tighter than it should be on his cheeks and shoulders. They put it down to the cold, at first; then when the feeling doesn’t fade, Martha clicks her tongue and says something about polluted rain.

Thus limited to the inside of the house—despite Bruce’s insistence, on the phone, that Kal should consider coming back to the cave for a round of testing, even if it means Bruce has to send Alfred and the jet to collect him—Kal shifts his focus to household tasks. He learns, in no particular order: to bake a cake, to make his own bed, to play checkers, to sweep the floor, to play Chutes and Ladders, to do the dishes, and to never question Martha when she affirms Kansas has the only football team worthy of her support.

(Bruce, when Kal shares this discovery in a text, sends another team’s logo back, and Kal decides he doesn’t know enough about Earth sports to get into that debate.)

Kara’s reply arrives sooner than expected: barely a day after Kal’s arrival on Martha’s farm. He leaves the itching out of his response, but goes over everything else in as much detail as he can—it takes him two days before he is satisfied with it—and, when the exercise proves to be more difficult than he would have liked, asks Martha for a notebook and takes to writing down as much of the things he thinks and feels as he can. It might lengthen his letters to Kara, but if it means he can come back to his notes later on and remember what it felt like to watch Jeopardy for the first time, or to discover the taste of dark chocolate chip mint ice cream, Kal is willing to take it.

On Kal’s second Tuesday at Martha's farm, he wakes up much sooner than he thought he would, something different in the air compared to all the other mornings he’s spent there. He opens his eyes with a reluctant sigh, gaze falling immediately to the blinds and the pale gray light filtering through the cracks, and blinks until his brain finally catches up. Scrambling out of bed, he jumps over a stack of cardboard boxes labeled ‘Jonathan’—the clothes now mostly waiting in the hamper for him to wash them and wear them again, while Shadow’s suit sort of...stands there—and rushes to the window. He struggles with it somewhat, making what must be quite the racket, but finally manages to unstick it with a triumphant noise, pushes the blinds open, and doesn’t even try to stop the awed ‘oh’ from leaving his lips.

The world is still shrouded with mist at this hour, lending the air a cool, silvery sheen sharp enough to remind Kal of home when he inhales. To the right, the orchard’s trees stand vigil in the pre-dawn mist, indistinct shapes waiting for the world to wake up like children still caught in dreams. Kal sweeps his gaze over the fields, still all but impossible to tell apart from the sky, and then to the storehouse and the barn, standing still as mountains while the day rises out of yesterday’s rain.

Kal watches, fascinated, as the long streaks of brighter light overhead incline far enough to kiss the top of the barn’s roof and turn it from gray to a vibrant maroon, the trimmings pale gold until sunlight catches the red paint and turns them almost orange with it. Slowly, softly, like a flower blooming, Kansas emerges from the mist, blue at the top and gold at the bottom, Martha’s barn the sort of vibrant vermilion even Krypton with its red sun and red moons and red dust has only ever dreamed of. It draws the eye at first, but the slope of its roof leads back down to the wheat below and then farther, and farther still, trying to catch a horizon so vast it makes Kal sway with the force of a feeling almost like standing on top of the Citadel, back in El, and pretending he could catch sight of its neighbors far in the southern mountains.

“Do you like the view?” Martha asks behind him.

Kal, still quite unable to close his mouth, nods and whispers, “I’ve never seen colors like these.”

“It sure is something,” Martha agrees, making her way over to the window so she can stand by Kal’s side. “I forget, sometimes, how beautiful it looks.”

“Krypton has a red sun,” Kal explains after a short silence. “It doesn’t look anything like this.”

Chances are, too, that the Melokariel Proposition will put enough dust in the atmosphere to turn Krypton's sky darker than it already is. What used to look like fire catching on the mountains will disappear, eventually, lost to time and failing memories. The thought puts an ache in Kal’s chest even as the beauty of what is before his eyes soothes him, and he’s still trapped between the two emotions when Martha asks, “How do you feel about working outside today? I’m sure the cows would enjoy a visit from you.”

Kal joins in Martha’s laughter at the thought, chest possibly warmer than it really ought to be. She did explain that cows sometimes enjoy licking the salt off people’s skin, and it’s possible Kal is different enough that he tastes like a treat to them. Even so, it is hard to ignore how soothing their affection is, how much a part of Kal’s soul will never tire of that sort of unconditional love. It would, perhaps, sound a little sad if he were to mention it to anyone else—he has, at any rate, carefully avoided any word of it in his letters to Kara and his phone calls to Bruce—but it is what it is, and Martha treats him to a fond grin as he makes his way out of the room and down to the kitchen.

Besides, if nothing else, it does have the potential to make both Martha’s and her dog’s jobs easier for a while.

Martha leads the way outside after breakfast, and Kal sinks into her routine with a delight even he couldn’t have anticipated, the repetition soothing enough that he can ignore the growing itch under his skin without much effort. There are, after all, so many things to discover! So many new things, new words, new colors and smells and sounds—an entire world of concepts just waiting for Kal to apply his mind to them, and no one to deny him the right to satisfy his curiosity because he doesn’t have the genetic code for it! Everything he does here he does for his own sake, because it pleases him, and Kal cherishes the novelty of it with enough enthusiasm that the soreness in his left side seems to evaporate within a few hours. By the time Kal follows Martha away from the barn and storehouse, he is no more than an inch away from substantiating into pure, distilled delight.

He’s savoring the bright burn of it in his chest and on his neck when the first explosion comes.

Kal throws himself to the ground with a shout of surprise and fear before he can control himself, and only then does he remember he isn’t alone here.

“Martha!” he shouts, as loud as he can manage, and prays to be heard over the cacophony. “Martha!”

There is another sound, just as close and devastating as the first, and Kal slaps his hands over his ears. Another boom. Another one—louder. Heavier. Kal whines. Boom, boom, boom—something else, fast, getting impossibly closer, shaking through every inch of Kal, and he wants to look for Martha, he does, but he can’t—it hurts! It hurts! Kal can’t hear, can’t breathe, can’t think—where’s Martha? Gods, he has to—what if she—another explosion, and Kal falls to his knees in the late asparagus, screams harder when even the ground provides no relief. There’s too much noise there—scratching and falling and digging and so many other things Kal can’t possibly tell apart and he screams and screams and screams and—

—quiet, just for a moment. A single second of answered prayer. Kal blinks. Blue sky, darker. Martha, her lips moving. Kal loses himself in the infinity of her voice and—

—blinks, eventually, groggy and scared and still lying on the ground in a crushed batch of asparagus. He breathes in, shallow at first. Waits from the implosion he’s sure will come, sooner or later. How he took control of this, Kal doesn’t know. It’s easy to tell, however, that the barest second of inattention now could be fatal. Send him back to the excruciating space where he lost a whole day—more, even, judging by the growling of his stomach.

Kal pushes himself to his knees with infinite care, and pauses there, just in case. If he is going to fall over again, he might as well mitigate the damage, even if the last time didn’t so much as leave him feeling sore. He sighs in relief when nothing terrible happens, and blinks up at the stars. If he knew them better, he could figure out for himself how long he spent...wherever his mind went all that time. He doesn’t, though, and so he makes himself go the rest of the way up and turn toward the house.

The journey there is both too long and too short, and Kal doesn’t notice the sleek black car in the lane until he steps onto Martha’s front porch and Bruce opens the door with an unreadable expression on his face.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce whispers.

Kal takes stock. Nothing feels broken, or bruised, or even sore. He’s exhausted, yes, and hungrier than he remembers being in quite some time, but overall...not bad, considering.

“Not too bad,” he tells Bruce, voice hoarse despite keeping his volume at the same level as the others.

He sends a smile to Martha over his friend’s shoulder.

“Surprisingly well, actually.”

“Good,” Martha whispers, clearly restraining herself from sighing.

“How long was I—out?” Kal asks, fumbling for the right words in English, and jumping when it’s Kryo who answers:

“Almost eighteen hours.”

Which puts the time at—Gods. Almost four in the morning. No wonder Kal is famished, though it is a wonder he isn’t equally as sore.

“We couldn’t move you,” Martha said. “You just seemed worse every time we tried to touch or talk to you.”

“We would have at least monitored your vitals,” Bruce whispers in Ellon, “but you weren’t wearing your suit.”

The words are little more than a breath on the air, and yet Kal hears the flat disapproval in them as easily as if Bruce had shouted it. He blinks.

“Well, I hadn’t exactly anticipated that particular situation,” he admits, and knows it was the wrong thing to say when Bruce’s expression goes from skillfully neutral to outright flat in less than a second.

“Of course you did not,” Bruce says in chillingly controlled Ellon. “Why am I surprised?”

Kal gapes this time, stunned out of his mind just long enough to hear the tail end of Kryo’s translation and Martha’s shocked exclamation. Honestly, he’d be lying if he said he disagreed. As if he could have planned for this!

“I couldn’t possibly have guessed,” he protests, forgetting to keep his voice down in his haste, “how could I—”

“You should have anticipated something like this. You are the very first Kryptonian to ever set foot on Earth—”

“That we know of—”

“You should have known better than this!” Bruce insists, voice raised to ordinary volume in its turn. “Now we have no idea what caused any of it—”

“Fine,” Kal concedes, although if he’s being really honest, it’s more out of a desire to end the conversation before it gets worse than true acceptance of Bruce’s point. “I’m sorry. You’re right, we don’t know what’s out there—I’ll wear the suit again.”

“Oh, don’t you take that flippant tone with me,” Bruce warns, switching back to English in his annoyance. “Do you have any idea of the sort of danger you put yourself in?”

“I said I’d wear the suit!” Kal protests. “What more do you want?”

“I want you to take basic measures of self-preservation and care about your own survival,” Bruce retorts, volume held to a normal conversational level by what Kal assumes is sheer force of will. “Otherwise I don’t see why I should.”

“Bruce!” Martha exclaims while Kal gapes.

He breathes in deep—in and out, in and out, the way he used to try and push Shadow’s nights out of his mind—and counts to ten as slowly as he dares...and, when that isn’t enough to calm him down, he closes his mouth and heads for the stairs.

“Martha was wondering if you’d stay for dinner,” Kal says when he finds Bruce in deep conversation with Kryo an hour later, half-hidden behind Martha’s ancient blue tractor.

Bruce’s head rises so sharply at that, Kal almost fears the man is going to give himself a stiff neck. He narrows his eyes as soon as he realizes who’s talking to him—Kal barely manages to catch the split-second look of surprise on his face—and straightens up to his full height, shoulders squared and jaw set. Kal carefully doesn’t sigh.

“Listen,” he says in English, hoping to keep Bruce more relaxed by sticking to his native language, “I’m sorry. I will wear the suit again. I’m wearing it now.”

Bruce remains silent. Kal counts to five.

“I know I wasn’t careful enough. I’m sorry. Please come to dinner?”

Bruce huffs and starts toward the house, but his shoulders don’t unwind, and it feels to Kal like the man takes special care not to touch him. It’s...not a pleasant thought. That Bruce would be upset is understandable, and Kal is willing to admit—albeit with some effort—that he was too quick to dismiss the man’s concerns, but to flinch away from him? Really? Maybe it shouldn’t sting, but it does. Kal stays quiet, though, determined to keep the peace as long as possible...which is probably why it surprises him so much when Bruce says:

“Previous data _was_ encouraging.”

Kal blinks. What is that even supposed to mean? Data is absolutely not the topic here, especially when Kal already apologized—and even then, if Bruce wanted to harp on this subject, why would he pick Kal’s own argument to...oh.

Kal resists both the urge to roll his eyes and the impulse to speak, opting for a smile instead. No reason to ruin a good thing after all.

Bruce does stay for dinner, but he is a terribly wealthy—and proportionately busy—man who also moonlights as Gotham City’s very own vigilante. Kal hasn’t made the mistake of using Kryo or the suit to look Bruce up again, but he is getting better at English far faster than he’d anticipated despite the violent headaches he gets when the sounds of the world grow too loud again, and it’s easy to get a general picture from news articles. All in all, it’s a surprise Bruce lingered in Smallville as long as he did, so Kal doesn’t allow himself too much disappointment when the man leaves.

There are still chores to be attended to, a language to learn, and far too many hours spent wandering through Wikipedia—not to mention the task of responding to Kara’s newest letter, and the long process of explaining both what happened to Kal’s ears and what Kryo and the suit have found out.

“I think it would be easier to deal with if I knew what to expect,” he confides over breakfast about three days after the hearing incident.

The Ship is still in orbit around Earth—and that’s another thing Kal will need to worry about soon. Even a vessel as ancient as this one should be able to evade most of Earth’s technologies for years to come, but that doesn’t mean Kal feels comfortable leaving out there for anyone to find. None of the simulations it has run for him have hinted at any negative change in Kal so far, but even so it’s difficult to predict how much or how fast he will change as he stays on Earth.

Krypton has been orbiting its sun for far longer than the Earth has existed, and where Rao was once a golden youth, age has long since shrouded him in calmer—and wiser—red. Life on Krypton has had a long time to adapt and make the best use of what little light it can get. In every corner of Krypton, even the deepest recesses of the most forgotten Principalities, people have learned to consume other living things to make up for the lack of nutrients given by the sun, the nourishing power of its light negligible enough that turning the gene for absorbing it dormant has been standard practice ever since it was found the act lowered the risks of dying from k’luris...but, of course, artificially dormant genes mean nothing to someone who was gestated rather than grown.

The Ship’s models have found nothing alarming, that’s true, but what resources does it have? There are almost no records left from the time when Krypton’s inhabitants routinely gestated and gave birth to their offspring, and what remains is all but useless once climatic changes are taken into account. Any simulation anyone could run on that basis is nothing but pure speculation and, quite possibly, wishful thinking.

“That’s understandable,” Martha answers over the rim of her coffee mug, one eye lingering on the sports section of her newspaper before she turns to Kal. “But on the other hand I think you might have been surprised even then. This way, at least, you get to brace for anything.”

“That’s sort of the problem,” Kal mutters. “The last time I got tense for an extended period of time, I ended up here.”

Sure, Kal likes Smallville better than he did the Citadel in many, many respects, but the move still hurt like nothing else, and he’s not done mourning the life he might have built for himself there by any stretch of the imagination. He sighs without meaning to, and flinches when he realizes Martha has fallen into an uncomfortable silence. He’s stammering through an apology, trying to reassure Martha that he does like it here on the farm, but instead of answering she takes his hand in hers and guides him upstairs to the office.

Kal remains silent while Martha goes straight to the corner, where the ‘Jonathan’ boxes have been stored out of reach of Kal’s clumsy feet. They haven’t—Kal has mostly been pretending he didn’t notice them, so far. He knows the top two boxes are where his first sets of clothes came from—and those are the main inspiration for the way he shapes the suit every morning nowadays—but other than that...Martha hasn’t offered any information and Kal, sensing a delicate topic, hasn’t asked. Martha gets the bottom box out now, though, and after some rustling she extracts a small black frame and hands it to Kal.

Kal recognizes Martha in the picture: perhaps thirty years younger, wrapped in a fluid, half-sleeved white dress. Her long dark hair flows from under a veil, and her smile is so wide it stretches Kal’s mouth into a smile of his own before he even realizes what’s going on. In the picture, Martha holds hand with a young, dark blond man whose hair curls around his ears. He looks just as radiant as Martha, his free hand holding a small white cap on the top of his head as he speaks to someone outside of the picture—sharing a joke, maybe. The white shawl on his shoulders is half slipping off, but it must not have been that important if it is left unfixed. Both Martha and the man have one foot raised, ready to step on a white glass laid on some kind of handkerchief.

“That’s my Jon,” Martha says, quiet and tender from her precarious perch on Kal’s folded bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk as much as he did at our wedding.”

Kal isn’t surprised, when he glances up, to find Martha looking wistful, gaze lost in a past she clearly misses. In her hands is a thin blue booklet, white curls and swirls framing words in an alphabet Kal doesn’t recognize.

“It’s a book of songs,” Martha explains when she catches Kal looking, “a book of hymns. They’re meant for the guests, usually, but Jon insisted we keep one for ourselves. He loved singing—was terrible at it, but it never stopped him.”

Kal smiles, but Martha doesn’t see him, too caught up in her memories.

“We were married for eighteen years,” she continues. “Eighteen years of handling everything life had to throw at us—the farm, my father’s death, the stupid fertility treatments that never worked, giving up on that dream...and then one day there was a storm when we were driving home. A tornado. I followed the crowd beneath the underpass. Jon—I swear, he was right behind me, and then…he must have realized we’d forgotten the dog in the car. I turned around and he wasn’t there anymore. I saw him by the car, opening the door—he could have made it, I think. But then he fell down, and—”

Kal doesn’t try to catch Martha’s eyes when she lowers her face, black-and-gray hair obscuring her expression. He does reach out to squeeze her hand though, holding just a little tighter when she sniffs and takes a deep breath. Then she lifts her gaze again, not trying to hide the glistening of her eyes as she says:

“It’s been twelve years, and I still cry over it sometimes. I’ve never been exiled, but I know what loss feels like. So don’t you ever feel like you have to pretend you’re not grieving with me, you understand?”

“I understand,” Kal says, rougher than he expected but unwilling to do anything about it. Then, after a quiet moment: “Will you tell me more about him?”

“Oh, he would have loved you,” Martha says, her smile genuine if far wetter than Kal has ever seen it. “Especially the bit with the cows.”

Kal and Martha laugh together and, for the better part of the morning, Kal listens to her story—how she met Jonathan Kent at their local synagogue, how they fell in love, how they lived together after they were married. He hears happy stories and sad stories and everything in between, including that one time Martha and her husband fought so hard over their inability to conceive a child Jonathan got blackout drunk for the first and only time in his life.

“I imagine that isn’t the sort of thing people fight over, back where you’re from,” Martha says a while later, when she’s done brewing coffee for the both of them.

Kal allows himself a huff of bitter laughter.

“People would have to even consider gestating their children for that to happen,” he says. “I’m—there’s no one else on the planet who did what my parents did.”

Besides, as far as Kal is aware, his parents never did fight about the lack of a second offspring. The Gods granted them only one son, and that must have been that. Kal’s failure to live up to his divine destiny and attain the leader’s position Rao must have intended for him was, he is sure, of far greater importance to them, especially after they’d promised so many people they would regret their harsh words when Kal came into his true potential.

“I’m sorry,” Martha murmurs when Kal is done explaining all of that, eyes red and nose still stuffy with tears. “That sounds like a lot of weight to put on one person’s shoulders.”

Kal shrugs.

“I mostly wish I’d been able to fulfill it—I wish they’d seen me as more than a disappointment.” He scoffs. “The frustrating part is—I still miss them. I don’t think we’ve had a meaningful conversation in over ten years but now I’m here, and they don’t want to talk to me, and—”

He cuts himself off, hunching over on himself, one hand coming up to cover his face even as he bites his lip and tries to stop fresh tears from falling. He breathes in, harsh and strangled, when Martha’s free hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and after a while he clutches at it like it’s the only thing preventing him from falling over.

“Sometimes, we mourn things we never expected to,” Martha says in the quiet of mid-afternoon, the cows mooing quietly outside. “I never used to care about family names, even when my father complained that once I got married and he died there wouldn’t be any Clark left in Smallville. Then Jon and I realized no treatment was going to make us able to have children together, and suddenly I was crying in my mother’s arms and asking her if she thought my father would still love me.”

Martha snorts, just a little, when Kal looks up at her. The expression on her face is more rueful than anything else, now, but Kal still offers the best smile he can muster, both grateful for the offering and sympathizing with Martha’s past pains.

“I’m no expert, and I’m sure Bruce would have something to say about sample sizes, but it seems to me like grief in Kryptonians isn’t any more rational than it is in humans.”

“I think you’re right,” Kal agrees.

Then, after a long pause—and in a rather sheepish tone:

“I’m so sorry, but...what’s a Clark?”

Kal blames the long time it takes for Martha to stop laughing and explain on their nerves.

Kal was expecting his body would keep changing. He _was_. That doesn’t make the first time he sees the cows’ internal organs any less of a shock.

“Deep breathing,” Bruce tells him through the phone half an hour later, once Kal has managed to make his way back to the house and focus long enough to locate Martha’s landline. “Find something else to focus on.”

“I can see my bones every time I look down,” Kal feels compelled to point out, faintly proud at how steady he manages to keep his voice.

Oh, the edge of panic is easy to hear—more so for someone like Batman—but at least it hasn’t tipped into the realm of hysterical shrieking. And, frankly, that’s about the best Kal can hope for, because he is seeing his _skeleton_ through his _hand_ and he’s fairly convinced even Bruce wouldn’t be able to just take that in stride. He would probably at least blink. Maybe even stare a little bit. Kal...well, Kal is staring a lot.

“Kal,” Bruce says in a tone that suggests it isn’t the first time he’s said it, “this isn’t an apnea contest. Breathe!”

“I am breathing,” Kal protests, “just...more quietly than I thought I would be.”

He couldn’t possibly be feeling as good—relatively speaking—if he weren’t breathing. He might have grown up in the mountains, but still. It’s been minutes, he doesn’t have that kind of training.

“Good,” Bruce says. “I have been looking at the files Kryo sent me. According to this morning’s readings, your eyes are still mutating, though I cannot tell what the trend is toward—”

“Well,” Kal says when he...squints the wrong way, or something, and suddenly he has a more detailed view of his hand—and his cells—than he ever thought he would, “I...might have an idea.”

At least, he thinks as he describes what he’s seeing to Bruce and tries to figure out what all the grunting means, it’ll make studying the structural composition of Terran life much easier for him. And if the thought prevents him from panicking too much when he tries to explain what’s going to Martha, or tries and fails to reach a maximum distance he can see at—lead blocks him, but, as he discovers through trial and error, the planet’s core doesn’t—well, it’s just a really nice bonus.

(He does stop experimenting when it turns out that he can see ridiculously far indeed, but cannot, in fact, see Krypton.)

About one month into his stay on Martha’s farm—fifty days, to the day, since he came to Earth—Kal decides it’s high time he started thinking about what to do with his ship and immediately proceeds to let Bruce know via the brand-new phone Batman insisted he have. It...hasn’t been used much. Kal is still a little—reluctant—to disturb Bruce, and despite the progress they have made towards being friendly again, he has yet to find his footing in this new world of theirs, where Kal is nothing at all like Shadow and Batman is not his mentor anymore. There are—some shades of that remain, of course, what with all the things Kal has to discover, but Martha handles as much of the teaching as Bruce these days. It isn’t as if their connection is even half as vital as it was on Krypton, and considering Batman doesn’t call...Kal shakes his head. No need to dwell on it.

Both Kryo and Shadow’s suit have been made to resist extreme temperatures and depressurization, so it’s easy to wait for the right time—dusk, conveniently enough—to put the suit in stealth mode, and let Kryo carry both of them up. From there, navigating the default security settings is a breeze, and in less than five minutes Kal is inside with Kryo trailing behind him and his helmet off.

The inside of the ship is impressive, if unsurprising. It was Kara who found it, abandoned in a secluded hangar by an El ancestor who clearly disagreed with the Wise Council of their time on the topic of space travel. Kal understands the decision, though he doesn't agree with it: if he’d perceived space travel as the sole reason one of his planet’s moons had been destroyed, he’d have wanted to ban it, too. Given the circumstances, though, it’s hard to feel anything but grateful for that nameless El person and their refusal to let go of their colonial vehicle.

“Perimeter intrusion,” the ship warns about half an hour after Kal boarded it, not a minute after he’s taken full command of it. “Earth vessel, uncategorized. Should I contact?”

“Show it to me,” Kal says, relieved to find out the Ship has kept itself apprised of what is happening on the planet.

It’s a clear residual subroutine derived from its primary function—to assess local life and help devise the best way to colonize and, if necessary, kryptoform the new planet. But if it means the Ship won’t have trouble understanding English, Kal is willing to take it. Meanwhile, in front of him and under his feet, the hull shifts, reshaping and recoloring itself to give the illusion of transparency, like a vast window opening on the universe. Earth is so huge like this, so blue, Kal doesn’t even notice the spacecraft right away. He blinks when he does, but in his defense he really wasn’t expecting to find Batman’s plane—the Batplane?—hovering right there in front of his nose.

“Grant access,” Kal tells his ship. “And please add the pilot to the list of authorized personnel.”

The ship obeys, and not ten minutes later Kal watches Bruce exit his vehicle in a ridiculously bulky variation of the Batman suit. He tries to cover his amusement, but he must fail because Bruce gives him a glare potent enough to be felt through the full-face mask.

“Nice suit,” Kal dares in English, and presses his lips tight when Batman only grunts in response. He gives himself a few seconds to sober up before he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to come along.”

Not that it isn’t appreciated, but, well. Bruce is a busy man. It would have been understandable for him to stay down on Earth.

“If this ship is going to stay in orbit,” Bruce says in Ellon, “I want to know what it can do.”

Kal feels his smile turn rueful. Of course it’s a purely practical visit. There shouldn’t be any surprise there. Still, it’s good not to be alone for this. The first few minutes were—Kal was—it’s easier, not to be alone for this. Counterintuitive though it may be, it seems less crowded here, in these walls so close in color to those of the Citadel, when he has a—an ally beside him. So, with a smile, he gestures for Batman to precede him and, armed with years of clandestine readings on the topic of space ships, proceeds to give Batman the grand tour.

“You have quite the impressive setup,” Bruce comments two hours later when they’re back in the command center, Kal hoping he’s done an adequate job of keeping his explanations as short as possible. “What do you intend to do with it?”

Kal shrugs.

“I haven’t thought about that.”

That’s a lie, of course, and he’s fairly sure Bruce knows it. Kal has...had a lot of time to think, in the past two months. About himself. About his life—what it was, what it is. What it could be. About the way Earth is changing him, and all the things he can do now that wouldn’t even have been dreams back on Krypton. About the television in Martha’s living room, crackling to life with news reports about the Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Aquaman. The Green Lantern, singular, as if there weren’t hundreds of thousands of them throughout the universe.

Kal has thought about all of that and about Kara’s letters, all the things they say about Krypton’s situation—and all the things they don’t say, but Kal can guess anyway. About what the news reports must sound like in their sector of the universe, and the things he will never be able to do for his planet. About the uses someone like Batman could have for a ship like Kal’s.

None of that has solidified into anything concrete though, each element bringing more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty, and Kal sighs when, sure as anything, the set of Bruce’s mouth turns skeptical.

“I’m...not sure yet,” he amends. “I don’t know that I should make that sort of decision before I’ve...stabilized. Somewhat.”

According to his latest readings and the sheer quantity of _everything_ he consumes these days, that isn’t exactly a close benchmark. He still has...time. Time to absorb the world a little better, to inform himself; to understand, maybe, a fraction of what he’ll need to survive on Earth, let alone blend in. More time to...adjust, too, to a life where Krypton is a distant memory, where Kara is nothing but a bi-weekly letter and Kal might be better liked than he’s ever been in his life but is also even more of an anomaly than he was back there.

Bruce makes a noise in the back of his throat, the significance of which escapes Kal entirely, and then, rather than offer advice, asks, “How is your cousin?”

He uses formal grammar to refer to her, a stark contrast to the more casual grammar he uses with Kal nowadays, and Kal can’t help but tense at it, just a little, feeling his face pinch before he can stop it. He makes himself relax—though too late, as always, to hide the emotion before Bruce sees it, and he isn’t surprised when the man’s mouth tightens in turn, just a bit. Kal can’t blame him for it, either: who wouldn’t find it frustrating, to try to be polite and considerate, only to be judged for their grammar? Kal wouldn’t like it either.

“She’s fine,” he says, careful to keep the sudden spike of loneliness out of his tone. “Still in a precarious position—I’m not to expect any news for the next month, at best—but nearly into Tu’an’s arms, as the saying goes.”

Bruce nods. Kal, unsure of the appropriate etiquette in this sort of situation, nods in return, and they both turn to stare down at the Earth below. It’s strange, Kal realizes, to see it like this. He never did get to see Krypton this way, and unless the planet undergoes drastic changes, he never will. His family may have kept his role as Shadow a secret from the rest of the world, but they know about it—and so does the Wise Council, and Kal knows for a fact they don’t always act aboveboard. They might not be in a position to try and condemn him openly, should he return, but Kal has no desire to fall over a balcony’s railing in his sleep.

Gods, he can almost hear the whispers already—nobles sharing his birth story between them, maybe attributing the apparent suicide to that finally catching up. A noble sacrifice for his family’s sake, at best, yet another pathetic move at worst; Kal’s jaw clenches at the thought, fingers tightening into fists before he can remember he’s not alone.

Batman, when Kal looks up, gives his clenched hand a pointed look and Kal takes a breath, musters a strained smile.

“I think I’m ready to go back down,” he tells Bruce in English. “I...I think I’d like to talk to a friend now.”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” Bruce asks, and tenses immediately.

Kal blinks. And blinks again. By the third time, Bruce has retreated into Batman’s stance entirely, mouth pressed into a thin line, a faint pink bleeding out from under his cowl. It’s the sight of him closing his eyes—the sound of his teeth grinding together, loud enough for Kal to hear even without opening his senses to it—that spurs Kal to blurt out, “Are we?” He clears his throat. “Are we really friends?”

Under the cowl, Bruce’s eyes widen.

“We’re not—not,” he says.

Kal doesn’t know what it means, for Bruce’s mouth to fall open when Kal smiles, but right now he feels happy enough that it doesn’t matter.

For the next week or so, it feels like Kal’s body is taking some kind of break, in that no new abilities—powers, as Martha calls them—seem to develop. Oh, sure, the tingling in his skin is still there, but it’s weak enough now that Kal can ignore it most of the time, and the violent, burning headaches of the past few days are almost gone. Which is a good thing, because Kal did not enjoy the feeling of having fireballs behind his eyes, thank you very much.

Kal enjoys the respite, frankly, and continues to learn everything he can, ranging from the history behind Martha’s Shabbat rituals to the proper way to change a car tire, how to milk a cow, and why it’s a bad idea to try to investigate unknown buzzing sounds in the bathroom. He sets up exercises for himself after that, trying to gauge how far his hearing goes—New York, to the east, but somehow it feels like he might be able to hear further—and how precise his sight can be. He trains himself to mix the X-rays and the insane zooms, to combine his abilities in different ways. The sheer range of what he can see or hear is—it’s exhilarating. Terrifying, too. All-around breathtaking, really, and Kal finds himself getting lost in it more than once, much slower to pull himself out of the chaos around him than he should be on the rare occasions when he still zooms in by accident.

It’s not a problem, though. Not really. Sure, it makes him look like an airhead, and it makes Martha laugh when he just freezes in the middle of a task, but really, that’s harmless, and so Kal doesn’t pay too much attention to it. After all, it isn’t like he couldn’t control it. He could. He can, now that he’s really applied himself to it—with a dedication even Bruce seems to approve of, if Kal interprets the tonality of his grunts over the phone correctly. It’s just that there are so many things to see, so many things to understand, and observation has always been the best way to understand something, and—there’s just so much! And it isn’t like Kal can tell himself ‘this is mud, you’ve seen mud before’, because every patch is unique, its own microcosm at any given moment, the changes in scale so dramatic it always takes him a few seconds to adjust anyway so why not let himself take the time to watch? After all, there’s no reason not to.

Or at least, there’s no reason not to stop and watch whatever he accidentally gets caught up in, until he freezes while Martha is maneuvering her tractor back into the shed and Kal doesn’t realize he’s standing in her blind spot until the sound of bending metal tears him back to the world’s regular scale.

“Ah,” Bruce says somewhere to Kal’s left. “I believe Martha might have downplayed the extent of the damage somewhat.”

Kal, who sat down on the floor the instant he and Martha realized what happened to the tractor and hasn’t dared to move since, curls up a little tighter, bringing his arms up to cover the burning back of his neck. There is a pressure building in his eyes, hotter than tears, hotter than anger, and Kal desperately doesn’t want to know what it is, what new levels of freak he will reach with this one.

“Please,” he manages in a croaking voice, “leave me alone.”

“I do not believe that would be a good idea,” Bruce replies, still in Ellon.

Kal can’t help snorting.

“If the tractor couldn’t hurt me—”

“You cannot stay in here forever, Kal,” Bruce cuts in. “You will have to move at some point. That might as well be now.”

Kal takes a deep breath and, when the heat recedes from behind his eyes, he raises his head to glare at Bruce.

“I think you and I can agree I’m not very safe to be around right now.”

“No, indeed,” Bruce replies. “But staying here is not helping matters.”

“Well,” Kal starts, well on his way to peeved now, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bruce cuts in. “Be better.”

Kal gasps, shame flooding his guts and clawing at his throat. He closes his eyes again, unwilling to watch Bruce survey the damage—not just the tractor, but the shed’s outer wall, too, where Kal stumbled away in surprise, and at least one stool, plus another metal beam...and then Kal did go the cowardly, childish route and sat down, refusing to move, refusing to even let Martha touch him until Bruce, having already planned to come and visit, got there.

And it’s...stupid and useless and probably not the sort of thing Batman would have done but what else was Kal supposed to do? Walk to Martha’s house and risk breaking it down? Risk injuring her, or worse? No. No, there’s no way he could have done that, and if it means he was...naive, or stupid, or anything of the sort, well, then Kal is going to have to learn to live with it, because there is no way he’ll risk hurting anyone again, thank you very much.

“But you did not hurt anyone,” Bruce says, sounding uncharacteristically puzzled, once Kal is done explaining that as best as he can.

“I haven’t hurt anyone yet,” Kal retorts. “I destroyed a tractor, Bruce! And I wasn’t even doing anything—can you imagine what would happen if I—”

Kal knows he sounds self-pitying. Gods, does he know that. But what else is he supposed to do? Walk out there and pretend he isn’t inches away from fatally injuring anyone—any living creature within reach? Everything that came before—the hearing, the X-rays, the super vision—that was—that was weird, but it was a useful kind of weird, and Kal—he knows how to be weird. He’s done it before. It isn’t fun, and he thought—he’d hoped to leave that back on Krypton, for the most part. But he knows how to be weird.

But this? Being dangerous? He has no idea how to do that. He doesn’t want to be that. And if that’s what he is now, if that’s the price he has to pay to stay on Earth, then maybe—

“Breathe,” Bruce tells him, and Kal glares again.

“I am breathing,” he says.

Bruce’s mouth tightens for a second, but he doesn’t push the matterwhich is a surprise, but in this case a welcome one. There’s enough on Kal’s mind without adding a Bat-lecture to it all. Still, Bruce does have a point, in that staying where he is and not moving will do nothing to improve Kal’s situation. He should do something, but the thing is—

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, face growing even warmer than it already was. “I don’t—what if I—I mean, Martha—”

“Martha would be perfectly fine if she did not have to worry about your mental state,” Bruce interrupts. “Do not waste your energy crying over something that has yet to happen—especially when you can prevent it.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Kal asks, picking overly respectful forms of Ellon on purpose. “Have you trained someone not to crush a skull by accident?”

“Do not use court grammars with me,” Bruce warns with a snarl. “And in case you forgot, I do work with Wonder Woman and the Aquaman on a regular basis. If they can control their strength well enough to live normal lives, so can you. Now stop sulking and come have dinner.”

Kal feels his ears redden again, and his stomach still feels lined with lead, but he does get to his feet after a while, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants. There is no denying, after all, that it is a comfort, knowing Batman is going to help with all of this.

With a deep breath, Kal gets to his feet to follow Bruce, and freezes in shock when he realizes they are not, in fact, going back inside the house.

What they do instead is sit down with Martha on a large, checkered blanket in the middle of the garden, a varied assortment of candles and electric lanterns set around the blanket, ready for use. In the middle, three bowls of soup and a golden loaf of challah bread wait for them, flanked by long thin tubes of plastic. The whole thing looks like it jumped out of one of the movies Kal has taken to watching with Martha every other night, and the sight of it settles over his heart like an affectionate smile. Kal sits down with infinite care, unsure what might happen if he just fell to the ground, and then looks up to find a strange expression on Bruce’s face.

“I haven’t celebrated Shabbat in a while,” he says with a tone of wary apology, “ever since—”

“That’s okay,” Martha says when it becomes clear Bruce won’t finish his sentence. “To be honest, I wasn’t very diligent with it myself before Kal came around...a lot of things seem pointless when you have no one to celebrate them with.”

Kal nods in silence, unwilling to disturb the sudden atmosphere of quiet grief that has settled over the blanket. He didn’t know Bruce and Martha shared a religion, and he knows this particular moment isn’t meant for him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t relate to the sentiment, to some degree.

He blinks when he catches Bruce’s gaze though—lowers his eyes for an instant, glances back up, and when Bruce’s eyebrow rises even further, he sighs.

“Some of our ceremonies in El...they are meant to be celebrated with family, too. Especially for the worship of Rao. He was—he was the helping God, you see, before he was the leading God.”

Long, long before, it’s true; many Ellon people have forgotten it, but it is easy, when one looks, to find the root of some remaining ceremonies in the ideas that honoring Rao is to help, and one’s inner circle is where one can have the most impact...thus, the emphasis on celebrating these moments as a community rather than alone.

“These aren’t—I don’t think many people keep those particular rituals,” Kal says after he explains—or tries to explain—the sort of God Rao used to be. “I...I’d have liked to, I think, but...well, like you said, what’s the point of a collective celebration when you’re alone?”

He thinks he’s done a decent job of keeping his voice stable—hopes so, at least, even though the way Martha smiles and Bruce just looks at him indicates he might not have been as successful as he wanted. Either way, the subject comes to a close, and Kal watches Bruce and Martha go through the various rituals of Shabbat. When they are done, the three of them sip on their broth in silence; Kal declines Martha’s offer to feed him some challah directly. Kal feels himself oscillate between lingering embarrassment at all the damage he has caused—“You’ve read enough press to know I can pay for that,” Bruce says with a dismissive hand gesture. “But you shouldn’t have to—” “Kal. It’s pocket change to me. Let me.”—and the suffusing warmth of knowing both Martha and Bruce care enough about him to endure a frankly unexciting meal for his sake. It’s almost—it’s well worth the embarrassment, actually.

“So,” Bruce says after they’re done with dessert, fireflies dancing around them in the now-complete night, “before I came to get you Martha and I had a talk about how to deal with this newfound strength of yours.”

Kal nods, tensing despite himself. He manages a smile in answer to Martha’s, but doesn’t really relax until she says, “Mostly, we were considering ideas for how you could try and learn to control your strength...and I think we’ve come up with something that could work.”

“You came up with it,” Bruce says, blank-faced.

Martha grows a little pink, but catches herself quickly.

“Anyway,” she says after clearing her throat, “we thought about trying to find something you couldn’t break to start with, but given the state of the tractor and how that happened, we’re not sure how long that would take.”

“Or if it’s possible at all,” Bruce says.

“Or that. So, at the risk of making things more frustrating for you, we thought we’d cut to the chase and start with smaller things right away.”

“These,” Bruce explains in English in the middle of the next afternoon, “are medicine balls.”

He’s helping Alfred and Martha unload a truck full of them as he speaks, sweating through the T-shirt he’s wearing while Kal tries to stay focused on the task and not on...things he shouldn’t be focusing on. He’s not sure how successful he is at that, but at least no one seems to have caught on, and Kryo isn’t here to point it out.

“They’re exercise equipment for humans,” Bruce continues, either unaware of or ignoring the bead of sweat making its way down his neck, “and impossible for us to break with our bare hands. If you can learn to handle them without breaking them, it’ll be a significant step in the right direction.”

“Plus,” Martha adds, rubbing at the small of her back after unloading yet another ball, “they’re only filled with sand, so you won’t have to worry about debris.”

That, Kal has to concede, is good news. It’s...it isn’t the same as a guarantee the exercise will work, but at least it mitigates the risk of injury quite a lot. Kal keeps himself out of the others’ way while they finish the job, exchanging the occasional few words with Bruce, until Bruce asks:

“Where’s Kryo?”

“I sent it up to the ship,” Kal replies with a little smile. “I haven’t needed it to translate anything for a while now, and it’s too big to fit in the house comfortably.”

Not that Kal himself can fit in the house, period, until and unless he manages to curb his own strength, but at least he’s somewhat less austere-looking than the hunit.

“You don’t need translation anymore,” Bruce says, voice flat.

Kal blinks.

“Not really, no. I understand enough to deal with new words on my own.”

“After two months.”

“...Yes?”

Kal blinks again when Bruce all but scowls. From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Alfred’s eyebrows have risen on his forehead—the press of Martha’s lips, trying not to laugh, but he doesn’t dare join her. Surprise, he would have understood. He didn’t expect to learn English that fast either; the memorization has always been the hardest part of language learning for him...but for Bruce to scowl? That he really doesn’t get—not when Bruce hasn’t seemed to be the envious type before.

“Sorry?” Kal tries after a few seconds, but Bruce’s only response is a twitch of his fingers against the medicine ball Alfred just tossed at him—the last one.

“Now that that’s done,” Bruce says after a short pause, giving Alfred and Martha time to retreat toward the house, “let’s begin.”

It makes sense, really, to begin right away. Every ball Kal destroys by accident will be one less his three companions will need to transport to the storehouse...but that doesn’t make the explosion of sand that hits Kal in the face when he tries to catch the ball any more pleasant. It doesn’t make much noise when it pops, which is a relief, but it does leave his ears even more freedom to pick up on Martha’s aborted snort of laughter, for the back of nis neck to flush hot even as he wipes the worst of it off his face.

He looks at Bruce, then, expecting to find him with something like triumph on his face—a revenge taken upon the man who didn’t have to put all that much effort into learning the local language? But instead what he sees is the way Bruce’s shoulders have relaxed just a little, the looser tilt of his mouth, almost like...well. Almost like relief.

Not for the first time today, Kal blinks in question, and then yelps when Bruce tosses the next ball at him with the same results. Oh, boy.

“This is useless,” Kal grunts as he sits down two hours later, Bruce finally too tired to keep going or resist all of their not-so-gentle suggestions that he take a shower.

Kal hasn’t even come close to breaking a sweat.

“It’s only the first day,” Martha tells him as she picks up one of the balls and goes to carry it to the storehouse. “Give yourself some time.”

“I don’t have time!” Kal protests, forcing himself not to flail in case he accidentally hit Martha and maim her—or worse. “I need to be safe to be around _now_ , but I—urgh.”

This—it’s the most petulant Kal has ever been. He knows that. He knows he should stop, too. Preserve what’s left of his dignity and wait until he’s alone to indulge in the pressing urge to sulk—but then, he never did claim to be a perfect man, and in the end what he does is sigh again and say:

“I hate this. All the rest—I can deal with being a freak, but a dangerous one? I can’t—”

“First of all,” Martha says as she turns back toward him, face genuinely stern for the first time since Kal has met her, “I don’t like that word, so I’ll thank you not to use it while you’re on my farm. And secondly, I for one am very glad you've developed this ability, because if you’d been anyone else, you’d never have—”

Kal stares, dumbfounded, while Martha cuts herself short and takes a deep breath, dropping her medicine ball so she can rub at her temples with the tips of her fingers.

“I thought I’d killed you,” she says at last, voice catching in her throat. “For those first few seconds I was so sure you’d died! But then there you were, completely unscathed, and if that isn’t good news, then I don’t—”

This time it’s Martha’s turn to end her sentence with a frustrated grunt, and Kal finds himself blinking at her for a moment, before he hangs his head.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, “I didn’t—I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, of course not,” Martha says, wiping at the corners of her eyes with, perhaps, just a little more force than necessary. “You’re like Bruce that way.”

“I don’t think I’m—” Kal starts, but he cuts himself short—and holds himself very, very still—when Martha rises to the tips of her toes and gives him what should be a crushing hug.

“No one else could have survived this,” she whispers fiercely. “So you might not like what the sun made you, but I’m damn glad for it, and you won’t be able to change my mind on that.”

She pulls out of the embrace and picks up her medicine ball before Kal has any time to respond, and he just...stands there, speechless. Because—Kal isn’t anything like Batman, clearly, but...he really didn’t think about that. About what really happened there, and how his body would have been affected back on Krypton, and what a miracle it is that he survived the accident, let alone unscathed. How many times, as Shadow, has he wished he could push past the aches and pains inherent in the mission? How many times has he wished he were able to do more, bear more, help more? And Earth...Earth is not Krypton, that much is true, but help is help is help, no matter where you go in the galaxy, and Kal...well. If he does get his strength under control, he has the potential to help on a much larger scale than most.

“...Did you even sleep last night?”

Bruce looks wide awake, but very reluctantly so, one hand firmly clutching a mug of coffee while the other readjusts the waistband of his pajama pants. His voice still has some sleep-induced gravel in it, and the whole thing makes him sound so much like a grumpy m’lo, Kal can’t help but smile. Granted, the fact that he did not, in fact, sleep last night may make the expression just a tad more manic than he was aiming for, but the whole thing proves entirely worth it when he can pick one of the last medicine balls off the ground, toss it in the air like it weighs nothing—which it doesn’t, for him—and grin at Bruce.

“Not a wink. What’s phase two?”

Phase two, as it turns out, begins with Bruce breaking his stoic facade in order to grumble a lot of things Kal doesn’t really want to catch—he does overhear the words ‘when’ and ‘timid simpleton’, though, and surprises himself when he...actually doesn’t mind that much. It isn’t—the words are still accurate, in many ways. There’s a reason Kal has yet to meet anyone who isn’t Martha, after all. The farm is spacious, the landscape fascinating, and the streets of Smallville, not thirty minutes away on foot, look awfully tempting...until Kal tries to picture himself having a conversation with any of the inhabitants, and quietly retreats back to Martha’s farm. It doesn’t matter how familiar Kal has gotten with the surrounding fields and the nearby river: people still stump him. Which is kind of ironic, considering his project. But try as he might, no matter how much he changes—and oh, Gods, is the Kal he is now much more confident than the Kal he was then—there is still a part of him that balks at the thought of letting itself be shown, shying away from the light and easy way Martha has of chatting with her friends on the phone, the attempts she’s made at taking him into town.

He doesn’t—there’s no real hope, in his mind, of him ever shedding any of that completely. But, for what might be the first time in his life, Kal is...almost okay with it. Or, at the very least, he feels like he might be able to deal with it, even if it is in a weird way.

So, all in all, it isn’t that hard to spend the day waiting for a couple hundred basketballs to be delivered to Martha’s farm, or the day after that making said basketballs explode between his hands for two hours straight. And then, when Martha—sweaty, short of breath, and most likely sore as anything—asks him if he wants a break, it’s no big deal to say yes.

“I think I’ll go for a quick run while you rest, if that’s all right with you?”

It isn’t like he’s gained enough control over himself to help with the farm yet, unless there’s a need to move heavy machinery. Since that isn't required at the moment and Kal doesn’t really feel tired, he might as well keep pushing his limits.

He isn’t really prepared when he ends up running a thirty-mile circuit in less than five minutes, though.

(“Just you wait until you’ve got fine motor control again,” Martha tells him that night as they sip on their soup in the garden. “I intend to make full use of that super speed of yours.”

Kal laughs and says, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”)

So this is actually mostly accidental. Kal will say ‘mostly’ and not ‘completely’, firstly because it is true—he hadn’t counted on actually being able to run to Gotham, but he did pick Bruce’s voice as a honing beacon on purpose, just to see if he could track it efficiently. And then also because with a little luck, or a lot of it, the honesty might decide Bruce in favor of not murdering him. Maybe.

Kal is, after all, probably not supposed to barge in on four ordinary strangers while they get a tour of the Wayne Manor renovations.

“Oh,” Kal manages intelligently. “Uh...hi.”

He waves a hand in the air, pleasantly surprised when one of the strangers—a lithe young man in a red plaid jacket—returns the gesture, open mouth or no. Behind him stands a tall, dark-haired woman whose pose and surprised expression echo Bruce’s. Then, to Bruce’s right: a tattooed giant in a t-shirt with a rather feral grin on his face, and—oh. Oh. Not so ordinary strangers, then, Kal thinks as he nods at the one the news reports name Cyborg.

“Kal,” Bruce starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud:

“Oh my GOD!”

There’s a crackle of electricity and a loud bang that makes Kal flinch, and then the lithe man—the Flash, then—is at his side, bouncing on his feet and firing questions so fast Kal doesn’t even catch one word out of every ten he speaks. Fortunately for Kal, he’s saved from having to answer any of it by the sight of a man in a Green Lantern uniform landing not six feet away from the group and asking, “What’s going on?”

“Flash has a crush,” Cyborg says, and the aforementioned speedster crackles to his side in an instant.

“Dude! He got there before I could see him! I don’t even—how fast were you even going?”

Kal looks down to check the display of his suit, still switching between numbers at the tail end, and says:

“Around two thousand and two hundred miles per hour?”

The Flash makes a high-pitched noise, and behind him the giant—Aquaman, then, since all the others are accounted for—sneers and warns, “If you even think of having a nerdgasm—”

“Ew! Gross, Arthur!” Flash protests.

Kal ignores the two of them as they descend into bickering, and walks up to Bruce and the others instead, one hand uselessly trying to rub the embarrassment out of his neck.

“I’m sorry for barging in,” he says. “If I’d known you all were here, I’d have—”

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Wonder Woman tells him with an amused smile and a pointed look at Bruce. “We’ve been wanting to meet you for a while now.”

“Oh,” Kal says, feeling his face grow pink, “well I—it’s an honor to meet you all. And uh—thank you, sir, for helping with the whole...administration. Thing.”

A little to the right, Kal can feel Bruce all but trying to burn a hole in the side of his head, and he clears his throat in response, scratching at his neck again.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’m sure you’re all very busy and I don’t—I just wanted to talk with Bruce but that—I’m sure it can wait until you’re done doing...whatever you’re doing.”

“We’re deciding if we really want to have our headquarters here,” the Flash says, popping up next to him with another blue crack, “seeing as it’s Bruce’s house and all.”

“Barry!” Cyborg snaps, only for Flash—Barry—to turn back to him with an offended expression.

“What? It’s true! He doesn’t even look like he wants us here.”

“Also, he’s a rich asshole,” Arthur-the-Aquaman chimes in.

Kal chances a look toward Bruce, and is absolutely not surprised to find him clenching his jaw, eyes briefly closed against what Kal can only assume is a strong wave of frustration. He’s fairly sure Shadow would have felt...well, roughly the same, really, and it’s only the patience that came with his new environment allowing Kal to deal with all of this any more serenely.

“I think it’s more the part where people aren’t supposed to find out Bruce Wayne is Batman, and that’ll be easier to do if the Justice League doesn’t settle on his private property,” Cyborg says, only for the Green Lantern to add:

“And we’re not entirely sure we’re comfortable with giving the US government grounds to claim us as part of its jurisdiction. We are agreed on that, right? We’re either working with every country or none of them.”

The others nod with various levels of focus—Barry and Cyborg are still bickering to one side while Diana settles a sympathetic hand on Bruce’s shoulder—and then Bruce releases a small sigh. From what Kal has seen of him so far, he’d say this is the Batman equivalent of slapping a hand on the table in frustration. He winces, just a little, in sympathy, and then Bruce says, “Again, if anyone has a more practical alternative—”

“Actually,” Kal blurts out before he can start overthinking it, “I might be able to help with that.”

Bruce gives him a suspicious glance, while the others stare in confusion.

“I mean,” Kal explains, “I do have a giant spaceship I’m not using.”

Bruce seizes him by the collar and drags him away from the other five.

“Meeting adjourned,” he tosses over his shoulder, and Kal barely has time to wave goodbye to the rest of the Justice League before they reach Bruce’s car.

Bruce peels off the gravel road before Kal is done buckling himself in, and before long they pull over in front of a long house made almost entirely of glass...Kal doesn’t even have to use the x-ray vision to see to the other side of it, which in turn allows him to catch the exact moment Alfred notices them.

Kal follows the old man to the kitchen—or rather, the counter that serves as a kitchen, considering there don’t seem to be any actual walls to partition the various rooms here—and helps himself to a cup of coffee accompanied by a helping of cream and another of sugar. Then, when Bruce fixes him with something that would be a full blown glare on anyone else, he clears his throat and says, “So. That was actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Giving your ship away to the League?”

“Well, no,” Kal admits. “That part was a bit more...spur of the moment. But I’m not just—”

He cuts himself off, frustrated and flustered by the way this conversation came about. He didn’t even mean to have it today, exactly. Or rather he wasn’t sure he’d be having it today—he thought maybe if the whole ‘hi, it turns out I can also run ridiculously fast’ conversation went wrong, then he could keep the other two things he needs to share with Bruce for a later time. It would—he’d probably feel a little less panicked that way. Hopefully. But then he actually got there, and the League was there, and they don’t really have a place to go; and so here Kal is, with absolutely no way out except through.

Oh, Gods.

“Kal,” Bruce says after a while.

He’s about to say more, Kal’s sure, but at this point it’s probably best to just get the first part over with, and deal with the consequences later.

“So,” he blurts out before Bruce can get another word in, “obviously the fact that I’m willing to let the League use my ship wasn’t what I was here to talk to you about, but it is related to...uh. Topic number two.”

“I assume,” Bruce says after a beat, “that topic number one was the speed.”

“Yes,” Kal confirms. “The other two are...somewhat related to one another, and to the reason why I offered the use of my ship to the Justice League.”

Bruce’s posture is impeccable under most circumstances, but he does still manage to give the impression of someone straightening up as he says, “I’m listening.”

Kal breathes in. This is, he knows, a key moment for him going forward. It isn’t that he won’t go on with his project if he doesn’t have Batman’s blessing; it is that he wants it—wants to prove, to both of them, that’s he’s evolved and changed enough to do this. That he’s ready for it, and won’t fail this time. With another breath in, Kal lets a little bit of Shadow settle onto his shoulders, slip into his voice. His spine straightens almost on its own, his eyes rising. He feels the change on his face, too: more solemn, more solid than his usual demeanor, but without the harsh tension of Shadow’s expressions.

“I want to help,” he says in a voice deeper than usual, and feels dimly rewarded when Bruce slides into Batman’s body language without missing a beat. “I...won’t be Shadow, here,” he adds, using the Ellon version of the name. “He was made for Krypton, and he should stay there...but I do want to help whoever I can here, and given your position—and everything you’ve done for me in every aspect of my life, I thought it would be only fair to let you know.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he cuts in, firm but not harsh. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

There is a pause, during which Batman’s features remain as neutral as they ever are—but he thinks he can still see something...touched, perhaps, in the tick of the man’s jaw. Eventually, the silence passes, and Batman says, “You realize you can’t just jump into that?”

“I do have some experience with this sort of business,” he retorts with a chuckle. “Enough to know I can’t possibly prepare for everything on the first try. But I did get started.”

“How?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to assess the state of my resources,” he explains. “I asked the ship to scan for and network with any Kryptonian tech it could access.”

Batman's tensing is so subtle, he’s tempted to think he’d have missed it if he didn’t have especially keen vision.

“There’s something on Earth you didn’t bring with you,” Batman says.

“Yes,” he replies. “A pre-settlement fortress in the Arctic. Part of the last wave, judging by the technology, but still more than enough for my personal use.”

“So you’d just give the ship up?” Batman asks.

He smiles.

“I was thinking more of a long-term lending plan. The League would have full use of the ship, but I would remain in command of it. The offer stands whether I am allowed to join or not, by the way.”

“How generous of you.”

“Like I said,” he replies with a shrug, “you would have more use for it than I will.”

“If we can get there,” Batman points out. “You should be aware by now that going to space is a little complicated for us humans, and we can’t just yell ‘beam me up, Scotty’.”

“Of course not,” he agrees with a chuckle. “I don’t think Scotty is a very dignified name for a spaceship, anyway. But there are technologies that could allow for teleportation, and I’m sure between your Green Lantern officer and I we could either build or obtain some.”

Batman stays silent for a moment, only moving to bring his hands up and steeple his fingers over the table, assessing him with a piercing gaze. He doesn’t move—doesn’t even really feel the need to squirm here, confident in the merits of his idea, if nothing else.

Then Batman says, “I’ll need more details before I put it up for consideration before the League. As for your membership...we generally wait to see what someone is capable of before we invite them in.”

“That’s not exactly what I understood from the news reports,” he says, without restraining an amused smile, “but that sounds fair enough.”

“Do you plan on...helping...in jeans and a t-shirt?”

His face still feels a little like Shadow's; but the smile that cracks across it is Kal’s, full of pleasant surprise at how fast Batman seems to have come around to the idea.

“Now,” he says, slipping back out of Kal, “that would be a waste of an exceedingly smart suit, wouldn’t it?”

Batman’s face remains entirely blank, and so he rises to his feet.

“Martha and I had a long talk about it the other day...let me know what you think.”

“Aren’t the colors a little...bold?” Martha asked in a careful tone when Kal finished sketching what he had in mind. “Not that the other heroes don’t have colorful costumes, mind, they just aren’t usually that….”

“Saturated?” Kal asked, and smiled when Martha gave him an embarrassed nod. “I guess you’re right, but...I like them. There’s Kansas’s blue sky,” he explained, pointing at the body, “Krypton’s red...and here, gold for the sun, and for Rao.”

If he was going to help, after all, he might as well bring something of his patron God into the uniform.

“And that?” Martha asked, pointing at the diamond shape and flowing crimson line on its golden field. “What does that mean?”

Kal couldn’t help the bittersweetness of his smile as he looked down at his sketch and the El family’s coat of arms over the uniform’s chest. It had, after all, started off as a symbol for Rao, and had only been incorporated into the El crest several centuries after the birth of their lineage. But it would have been a lie to say that Kal hadn’t kept that in mind when he chose the symbol. It was a piece of his world, after all; not only a part of Krypton and El’s history but a part of his childhood, too. Years of distress, of dissatisfaction, of disappointment for every member of his family...and here, finally, he’d found a way to reclaim it all. To make the crest his, rather than cower around it in every part of his existence.

Adding this to his design—even just putting the first curve of it to paper—had felt like figuring out a key piece of a puzzle. If there was only one part of this costume that wouldn’t change, it was that one, no doubt about it.

“That’s my family’s crest,” Kal explained, then. “It used to be an ancient symbol for Rao and the light he brought to Krypton. See how the line comes and goes, but never disappears?”

Martha hummed.

“It is supposed to represent the power to do what is right by those you care about. The power to help where you are needed, and the strength to ask for help when you need it. It’s also—it’s supposed to tell you that powerlessness, helplessness, they’re only temporary states. Sooner or later, you will have the opportunity to help others—or help yourself—again.”

“Oh,” Martha said, her smile brimming with affection, “so it means hope, then.”

“So?” he asks, when Batman remains motionless too long for comfort. “What do you think?”

“You look—”

Bruce—because it was Bruce’s voice there, not Batman’s—cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. Clears his throat, a faint pink dusting his face for some unfathomable reason, and corrects:

“It’ll do.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I need to wear a mask?” he asks, surprised.

“You’ve seen the people I work with,” Batman says, something almost dejected in his tone. “I try to pick my battles.”

He laughs, but Batman doesn’t join him.

On the second of August 2019, a little over two months after his arrival on Earth and about two days after he told Batman about his intention to join Earth’s growing League—Guild?—of helpers, there is a fire on the outskirts of a city called Metropolis. It isn’t the first one he's heard burning during those two days, of course, but people know how to handle fire, most of the time. And when they can’t, well. Flash does operate mostly around the Midwest, so he can take care of these things, when needed.

On that day, though, Flash is busy dealing with a hostage situation up north in Star City, and the firefighters called to intervene are discussing the difficulty of the operation before they even get there...so, obviously, he changes into his uniform and runs to join the rescue efforts.

It’s a residential building he finds when he arrives. Old; filled with dry wood, old paper, and more than a dozen elderly residents trapped on the last floor, too slow to escape the flames and too frail to get out on their own. He slows to a stop next to the firetruck and filters the screams out as he walks up to the man who seems to be in charge and asks, “How can I help?”

“Stay out of the way,” the man replies with barely a glance at him. “This is a delicate operation, and I don’t have time to shepherd a clown in leggings!”

He follows the man’s gesture to where the truck’s ladder is malfunctioning, and sucks in a breath. No wonder everyone looks panicked—even if someone makes it to the third floor through the inferno, there’s no way they’ll be able to get everyone down that way. Not with human speed or strength, at any rate. Stepping aside from the firefighters, he opens both his hearing and his vision until he figures out where to go first.

Using his speed, he climbs up to the correct window, punching and kicking holding points in the old brick. Once there, he blocks the interstice under the door with his cape, scoops the elderly man and his poodle up in his arms and, taking care not to jostle them too much, climbs back down to the ground in order to leave man and animal to the care of emergency services. Immediately, he can hear the firefighting chief redirect his people’s efforts so they can take the residents in charge sooner and aim their streams of water toward the newly-opened window.

He repeats the rescue process for each of the twelve residents trapped in the house, taking the time to reassess who is most in danger between each round, then goes back for two wheelchairs, a pair of canes, and, despite the firefighters’ inquietude, the ashes of the first resident’s husband. The man takes them from him with a grateful sob, and he smiles in return, wishing him and his neighbors a speedy recovery as they are taken to the nearest hospital.

A small crowd has gathered around the building while he was working, concerned neighbors and gawking bystanders alike, several smartphones raised to capture the scene—which can’t have lasted more than twenty minutes, including the time he took to chat with the resident who broke her arm in her panic, trying to relax her as much as he could. When he turns around, flashes erupt all around him, and a red-haired woman waves her arm high in the air.

(She mutters between her teeth as she does so, something about finally having a ticket out of the doghouse if she can get a statement, and he allows himself a smile as he walks up to her. Help, after all, can take many different forms, and it isn’t like this is going to cost him anything.)

“Good morning,” he says, though at this point they are veering towards lunchtime. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” the woman says in a determined, no-nonsense tone. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Could you tell me what you were doing here?”

“I heard people calling for help,” he says truthfully, “and I knew I could help, so I did.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

He was expecting the question—even tried to come up with an answer for it, back when he first discussed it with Martha, but nothing he could think of seemed quite right, either too arrogant or too banal. So, in the end, he does what he’d decided on and evades:

“It seems to me like naming helpers is traditionally the press’s prerogative.”

He smiles a little, but Ms. Lane doesn’t return the expression, tilting her head to the side instead.

“Helpers?”

“People like me, who have certain...unusual abilities, and who use them to help where they can.” He pauses, curious, careful not to frown. “Is that not what you call them?”

“People like the Wonder Woman or the Flash get called heroes,” Ms. Lane says. “Do you think you should be called a hero?”

“I don’t think that’s my decision,” he admits, forcing himself to ignore Kal’s urge to blush, “but I’ll certainly do my best to be worthy of the comparison.”

“One last question,” Ms. Lane starts, but she has a look on her face that makes him fear the sort of question he really won’t know how to answer, and so he tilts his head to the side, pretends to listen for something for a second, and says:

“If you’ll excuse me—I’m afraid I have to go.”

He takes a step back to scan his surroundings—far too many people on the sidewalk for a dignified exit that way, even if he were to speed away immediately after, and there’s nothing behind him besides the burning building where the firefighters are only just getting the flames under control. Without a better option—and, more importantly, without the time to look for one—he sends a quick prayer to Rao to make his legs as strong as his arms, something he has yet to put to the test, and jumps away from the crowd. He lands on a nearby building with a much louder crash than he would have liked, though at least he manages to roll enough to avoid cracking the rooftop; and when he realizes the crowd can still see him, he jumps away again.

His second landing is even less dignified than the first: he lets the suit stretch downward as he falls, redistributing material from his cape to the bottom of his feet, but because he now knows he can manage the jump, he forgets to prepare for the roll on the landing. He hits the roof face-first as a result, startling a cage full of pigeons and getting more or less tangled in his cape, which is embarrassing enough on its own and becomes worse when he hears someone laugh above him.

He gets back up too fast, trips over his own feet, and stumbles off the building all in the same movement, Wonder Woman gasping in surprise and reaching for his hand...until they both realize that he isn’t, actually, falling to—well, not to his death, clearly; but someone like him falling from that kind of distance could easily kill whoever happened to be passing by. So it is still a relief when he manages to right himself up and find his footing on the roof again.

“Good catch,” Wonder Woman tells him with a smile.

“Thank you,” he replies, allowing himself to blush a little. “That has to be the best timing for a moment like this so far.”

She tilts her head to the side. In her uniform, she looks younger than she did in her jeans and leather jacket, but also more dignified somehow. She reminds him of Kara—the way she carries herself is just as confident, if not more so, and it speaks of someone used to commanding people’s attention without effort. No wonder the press seems to hold her in such high regard.

He wonders if they’ve ever seen her look like this, though—just a little puzzled, but smiling in a way that makes it look like she’s anticipating nothing but a good answer.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly—do that, on Krypton,” he admits. “Though I guess I’d have had less trouble with vertigo, if I could have.”

Wonder Woman laughs, striking a delicate balance between the dignified laughter of a queen and a delighted giggle, before she says, “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed you’d never done this before if you hadn’t told me.”

He smiles, just a little too nervous for the man he’s supposed to be right now.

“You weren’t half bad down there, either, you know,” she says with a conspiratorial smile.

She turns her head to the left then, eyes unfocused as she listens to something in the distance, back where he came from, before she offers him a hand to clasp.

“It seems they have decided what to call you. Welcome to the helpers, Superman.”


	4. Clark Kent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No one can be a superhero all the time," Diana said, and if Wonder Woman says it then it's probably true. The question is, who's Superman when he's not heroing around in red, gold and blue?

Wonder Woman—“Call me Diana”—retrieves a long wrap-up dress from a bag hidden on a nearby building, tucks her hair into a tight bun, and takes Kal to a nearby shop for what she introduces as one of humanity’s best inventions and the shop advertises as ninety-nine different flavors of ice cream.

“I should probably warn you I haven’t had ice cream before,” Kal says as they sit down after Diana paid for their order. “I have no idea what it might do to my—I don’t know how well I’ll digest it.”

“Well,” Diana says with a smile, “we’ll just have to keep an eye out for unfortunate symptoms.”

Kal chuckles as Diana dives into her five-flavored mountain of ice cream with gusto, and for a moment they are entirely focused on their respective desserts. Kal can’t help but let out an exclamation of pleased surprise at the deliciousness of it, and laughs at himself when a few heads turn his way. Across from him, Diana is chuckling into her chocolate chip mint, and she winks when she sees Kal blush.

“Ice cream was one of the first things I discovered when I joined the world of men,” she says with a fond smile, eyes going just a little distant with the memory. “Everything was so...gray. The ice cream was delicious, though. Plain vanilla. I remember telling the vendor he should be very proud.”

Kal follows her in an amused chuckle, and tries the cherry and chocolate flavor he took such a long time to settle on. It might, possibly, be his favorite so far.

“I don’t think I can fault you for that reaction, you know. This is delicious...though, to be fair, I haven’t had food I really disliked, so far.”

He’s not overly fond of seafood, but that honestly has more to do with the fact that he can’t keep it down more than fifteen minutes than with the taste or texture of it. Fortunately ice cream doesn’t seem to be having any adverse side effects so far. Kal gives himself a second to appreciate that, before he caves in and says:

“Please don’t think I’m not enjoying this but...why did you bring me here?”

He can’t possibly imagine Diana as the sort of woman who would have more than a passing interest in someone like him after all. An eye-catching costume is not enough to erase who he is in the slightest.

“Can’t I simply check on a new colleague after his first mission?” Diana asks with a smile that leans too far to the cheeky side to be entirely innocent.

Kal resists the urge to rub at his neck, but only just. He is, after all, acutely aware of the vast gap between Diana and him—doesn’t know the exact shape of it, of course, but the very way Diana carries herself is more than enough evidence for him to go on. She must see something of his feelings on his face, too, because in an instant her grin softens into something a tad less teasing.

“If I’m to be fully honest,” she says in a conspirational tone, “I have to admit I’m also very curious about you.”

“About me?”

Kal catches himself before he points at his forehead—not the ideal gesture to blend in—but he couldn’t restrain himself from blinking even if he wanted to. What is there even to be curious ab—oh.

“Oh,” he says once the avalanche settles. “I—I don’t know how...ready I am. To talk about...home,” he finishes, rather lamely.

He’s been—it’s easier, these days, to talk about it with Martha, sharing tidbits of the world he grew up in whenever he discovers something new with her, comparing their faiths while observing Martha’s customs...but that’s different. That’s just—they have things in common. It’s easy to share with Martha because she shares so much of herself already: all Kal has to do is answer in kind, and make sure he’s as much of a support for her as she is for him. It would be another thing entirely, to answer Diana’s questions—to dig into his memories for something vaguely academic, to try and order his thoughts into something...coherent and understandable. It is a work he’ll have to start on, eventually. There will be others with questions about where he came from, what he did, why he came to Earth. Right now, though, even the thought of it is too much to stomach.

Diana, however, doesn’t seem to mind at all.

“That’s all right,” Diana says with the kind of indulgent chuckle adults tend to reserve for silly children. “Like I said, I’m actually more curious about you.”

“Me?” Kal blinks, wrong-footed despite himself. “What could you possibly want to know about me?”

Diana gives an elegant shrug, settling back in her seat with studied nonchalance, but Kal doesn’t miss the sharpness of her gaze, the thoughtful pursing of her lips as she looks him up and down. The once-over makes him blush from the scrutiny—although, he is quite relieved to note, there is no sexual undertone to the gesture—and he has to remind himself that fiddling with his napkin is actually a possibility now that no one’s there to reprimand him.

“Anything you’d like to tell me,” Diana says, eyes still alert. “Bruce is the most tightly controlled man I’ve ever met—I’d like to know what it takes to impress him so much.”

Kal all but chokes on his chilled water, spluttering when he spills a good quarter of his glass on his lap as a result. Batman, impressed? By _him_ ? Either this is a cruel joke, or Diana has Kal confused with someone else—anyone else, really. Kal is so far—he wouldn’t even be able to impress the public version of Bruce Wayne, he’s sure of it, so for Diana to think he’s impressed _Batman_? Rao, the thought would make him laugh if it didn’t come attached to the certainty of failure where he and Diana being friends is concerned.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Diana, “but I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding here. I’m not—he’s not—”

“Oh, I daresay he is,” Diana cuts in with a brilliant grin, “but you don’t have to believe me—and we don’t have to keep talking about him either, unless you’d like to?” She pauses just long enough for Kal to shake his head. “Well then. Tell me about you. What do you do?”

“I’m sorry?” Kal says, stumped by the turn of phrase.

“As a job, I mean,” Diana clarifies. “What kind of civilian identity did you build for yourself?”

“Oh,” Kal says, wincing a little while his hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck. “I, uh—I don’t really have...one...anymore?”

He sinks into the booth bench with every word, red leather creaking under him while Diana’s face grows increasingly tight with something that might—just might—be like righteous anger. Not that Kal is very eager to stay and find out—she won’t harm him, he’s pretty sure, but he’s never dealt well with being scolded, and he’s got a feeling that coming from someone as eminently admirable as Wonder Woman, it’d be even worse.

“Sorry?” he offers, stumbling through the word as his brain waddles through his abrupt shame for even a scrap of competence. “I just don’t—”

“Kal,” Diana interrupts. She’s firm but not stern, and Kal wonders what it is, then, that makes his stomach sink like a stone when she says his name. “You have to have one. Even a flimsy one will do, but you can’t—no one can wear the uniform all the time. No one. You’ll go crazy, if you don’t have anything but the cape.”

Kal nods in silence, and doesn’t have the heart to tell her he already knows what that feels like. He stirs the conversation away from that particular topic instead, exchanging stories of his first few days on Earth—without sharing Martha’s name—for Diana’s first adventures in what she calls “the world of man” over a hundred years ago, and laughing in horror when she tells him about her first contact with the other members of the League.

“You can’t be serious,” he tells Diana, and this time her snort of laughter has absolutely no mirth in it.

“Oh, I am. It’s a good thing I’ve had time to learn how to think before I speak—had I been fifty, maybe even forty years younger, Lex Luthor’s scheme might actually have worked.”

“Well,” Kal says, “I’m glad it didn’t happen to me...I don’t know that I’d have handled it as well as you did.”

“Luckily, we won’t have to find out.” Diana shrugs, her mood brightening again. “Luthor is in prison, his creature dead underground, and we are all very, very grateful for John’s perfect timing.”

Kal sighs in belated relief, glad that he didn’t have to discover an Earth where Batman and Wonder Woman had been at war—or worse, still were. He cannot imagine the state of things if Diana hadn’t forcibly manhandled Bruce into a long conversation about everyone’s goals and principles, and while it’s a pity the two of them—three, with the Green Lantern’s timely intervention—had to kill what sounds like a perfectly innocent Mlrn to protect Earth, at least the planet remains safe; that’s all that matters.

“That we are,” he agrees. Then his suit vibrates with a time alert, and Kal winces. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I promised my host I’d be back for dinner, so….”

“Oh,” Diana says, “yes, of course.”

She insists on paying, which is objectively a good thing despite his unease at owing anything—even something as small as that—to someone he barely knows. Kal doesn’t exactly have money to his name, not even cash. He promises Diana that he will pay for their next ice cream—the width of her smile enough to soothe a wave of panic when he realizes he didn’t even ask her if she wanted there to be a next one—and then sets off toward Kansas.

He and Martha share a small celebratory dinner, Kal blushing his way through the recounting of his story and making an embarrassingly enthusiastic sound when Martha gets her apple and rhubarb pie out of the oven. The dessert is more than worth it, in Kal’s opinion, and Martha's fond laughter doesn’t hurt at all, either. In fact, Kal even finds himself expressing his delight more than he usually would, just so he can hear her chuckle again—it works like a charm, and Kal keeps the game up until he thinks, unexpectedly, of his parents’ faces the last time he attempted to make them smile and the mirth slides right out of him.

“Oh, by the way!” Martha says, either not realizing what’s going on in Kal’s head or offering him an out from it. “Batman called while you were away—don’t look so shocked, dear, he’s had my number longer than you’ve had his. And it isn’t like he can phone your suit, now, can he?”

“Right,” Kal says, surprised at his own reaction, “of course. Did he leave a message?”

“Only that he wanted to talk to you,” Martha says. “You ought to call him—and figure out a way for him to call you. I’m too busy keeping this farm afloat to take on a job as your secretary.”

Kal promises not to make a habit of it, taking the dishes off the table as he goes, and speeds through the washing up before he goes into his room, sits on the open windowsill, and has the suit patch him through to Bruce’s phone.

“We need to procure a _phone_ for you,” Bruce says in Ellon, in lieu of greeting.

He still speaks in the slow, slightly too-well-articulated way Ellon nobles do—a sharp contrast to Kal’s definitely Shadow-inspired grammar. But he’s taken to using more familiar forms again these days. He’s willing to meet Kal as an equal—perhaps a friend, even, someday—and the deliberate increase in grammatical proximity is enough to turn the fond eyeroll threatening to overtake Kal into a grin, a feeling like warm water in the bottom of his stomach.

“Hello, Bruce,” he says, bringing his knees up to his stomach as if to trap the soft heat there. “Martha and I were just talking about this, actually. We agree, really, it’s just—I don’t really have money and—”

“And you are talking to a literal billionaire,” Bruce retorts with clear exasperation, “and worrying about pennies.”

A beat passes, during which Kal’s mouth gapes open and then closes again all on its own. It isn’t—money is not...well, it is the problem, but—it’s not Martha’s money that’s the problem. Sure, Bruce has more of it than he could even think of spending for the rest of his life, but….well. It still leaves Kal uncomfortable to take money from him, is all. He hasn’t quite figured out why, yet, but the feeling is there. He barely has time to wonder how to explain all of that, though, before Bruce concludes:

“As I thought. I’ll send it over tomorrow.”

“All right,” Kal says, because there really isn’t anything else to say when all has been decided. “Martha said you wanted to talk?”

Silence, brief but all the sharper for it, until Bruce breathes in like he’s gearing up to dive—not that Kal is meant to hear it, probably—and says:

“There’s video footage of this morning.”

“Oh.”

Possibly not the most intelligent reaction Kal could have had—in fact, he should maybe have anticipated that. Still, getting caught on camera is—there’s a reason Shadow’s suit was programmed to deal with nearby recording equipment whenever he got out. To be filmed, to give anyone the occasion to study him, could have spelled his death back on Krypton. He isn’t as fragile now as he was then, that’s for sure, and the likelihood of anyone linking what that Daily Planet reporter has dubbed The Superman to Martha Kent is too low to be of concern just yet, but old habits die hard.

“I, uh—” Kal attempts when Bruce doesn’t seem interested in using any more words, “I thought that—um. It went...well. I mean, I suppose there’s room for improvement—”

“You don’t say.”

The words knock Kal right out of himself, into the small space that never quite ceased to exist between himself and Shadow, the brand new emptiness between Kal and the Superman. It’s—it’s a familiar space, but it was never particularly comfortable, and finding it here when he’d hoped to be rid of it forever leaves Kal almost breathless with the pain of it. He blinks, throat tighter than it should be, and runs a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he should not—should _not_ —be surprised when Bruce says:

“Don’t be sorry. Be better.”

“Look,” Kal tries, eyes drifting to the endless sky as if there could be some comfort there, “I’m sorry. I realize it wasn’t perfect—”

“You were thoroughly unprepared,” Batman cuts in, “and it showed. You had no idea what the fire would do to you, did you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“It could have made you explode, for all we know,” Batman continues, without acknowledging Kal’s words, the calm of his tone one more reason for Kal to wince. “You put your life in danger—”

“The suit is fireproof, actually,” he points out, barely restraining a roll of his eyes in time. “I’m not entirely stupid, you know. I’m not convinced by your explosion theory either.”

“My point is,” Batman replies through what sounds like painfully gritted teeth, “that you went into this without preparation, putting not only your life but also those civilians’ lives in danger, and—”

“And if I hadn’t done anything,” Kal interrupts, finally finding his voice when a flash of anger rises inside him, “they could have died anyway—I heard some of the firefighters talk, you know, and even if—”

“Kal—”

“You forget I wore Shadow’s suit long before I came up with the Superman’s!”

There is a short pause while Kal gets his breathing back under a semblance of control, too incensed to even think of being embarrassed by his own outbursts. He can feel the heat high in his cheeks, the burn of anger in his armpits, and it feels like he’s trying to cough up glass when he continues:

“I couldn’t have allowed myself to stand by and do nothing any more than you could have remained inactive back in El! Now, I may be—inexperienced, and sloppy, reckless and a simpleton and all those things you think I am, but I’m not—I’ll train more, if you want. I’ll do research and I’ll plan ahead better, but you can’t—don’t you ask me to stand by when I have the chance to really help people, because I won’t.”

The line remains silent for a long while after that, Kal’s mind swinging wildly between the wilting shreds of his anger and the absolute terror of thinking maybe this is it—maybe this is when both of Bruce decide they’ve had enough of the ridiculous stranded freak from El. Even with that, though, even thinking perhaps this is the last he’ll hear from the first true friend he’s ever had...Kal can’t make himself regret what he's said.

Oh, he’ll train all right. Bruce...he’s got a point—a sizable point, even, though just thinking it feels like pulling teeth at the moment—and more preparation would probably benefit everyone in the long run. Gods, does the thought chafe; not by itself, but because of the way it came about, and—the point is, Kal will train. He’ll...sulk about Bruce’s opinions for a few days, and maybe even grumble about it for a while but he—he will, if that’s what it takes. But he’ll still help in the meantime, prepared or no, and if Bruce has a problem with that—well, then they’ll have a real fight on their hands.

“Fine,” Batman says, with an explosive sigh that startles Kal badly enough that he almost cracks the phone receiver in his hand. “Fine. You keep helping. But I’m sending you some reading—and don’t think for a second I won’t be quizzing you on it.”

“Fine.”

There is the sound of flesh brushing against flesh on Bruce’s end of the receiver, and Kal pictures him rubbing the bridge of his nose—an impatient gesture he’s never seen Bruce indulge in outside of his Cave—before Bruce takes a deep breath and, in a voice that’s almost back to normal, asks, “What do you think of Diana?”

“I like her,” Kal says with a shrug, slipping into the new topic with no small amount of relief. “She’s nice.”

It isn’t simply that she was much more positive about Kal’s first performance as a helper than Batman—or Bruce, for that matter. It’s...well, she seemed to care, is all. She had pointers to offer, advice that, now Kal thinks of it, differed greatly from Batman’s in tone, but not so much in content, and she asked about Kal’s life outside of his new costume—didn’t quite tut at him about it, either, though Kal got the feeling she wanted to. And even then...somehow, he doesn’t think that would have been so terrible. Diana has—Gods, Kal would probably get in trouble with someone if he said it out loud, but there’s something old about her. Not just in the wealth of experience she seems to have, or in the yearning for long-gone happy times, but also in the...shamelessness of her. There were moments in that ice cream parlor when Diana reminded Kal of the elderly members of El’s court, who would laugh criticism of their oddities off and tell whoever the concerned party was that perhaps they’d live long enough to learn wrinkles came with a definite lessening of self-consciousness. Diana didn’t get the wrinkles, obviously, but there is an unrestrained part of her that makes it feel, just a little, like they’ve already settled on her soul.

Must be a stark contrast to Batman’s way of doing things, Kal muses. Of all the things to be said about the man, good and bad, ‘unrestrained’ doesn’t even come close to the list; quite the opposite. And it isn’t—it doesn’t make him a poor teacher, or mentor, or friend or—whatever it is he wants to be to Kal. He’s good at all these things—too good for Kal to follow, most of the time—it’s just. Sometimes, both Bruce and Batman are hard to keep up with, and now they’ve gone and finally found the button to press to get Kal angry enough to push back. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, really, and so Kal keeps this train of thought to himself, humming when Bruce tells him Diana would like to meet him again.

“In fact,” Bruce continues, like the words are being torn out of him, “they would all like to meet you.”

“...All?”

“The League.”

“The—oh.”

Martha, passing through the hall with a hefty bucket full of vegetables, pauses on the threshold and clears her throat, waiting long enough for Kal to meet her eyes—he must look more panicked than he meant to, judging by her light frown—and mouth ‘they want to meet me!’ in awestruck English. He has to clarify who he means, but then Martha breaks into a gigantic grin and pads toward him in socked feet to set a hand on his shoulder.

“Congratulations,” she mouths, and Kal is in the process of nodding when Bruce asks:

“Are you still there?”

“Oh—yes! Yes, I, uh—I’m here. And I’d be very honored to meet the _Justice League_.”

In front of him, Martha's grin grows even wider.

“Great. The Cave, next Friday. Three PM, New York time.”

“All right. What should I—”

A dull clicking sound. Kal pulls the receiver away from his ear and stares at it for a second, trying to slow-blink himself out of his stupor. To be invited to the League’s headquarters—of course, Kal was hoping to meet them. It’s just—he’d have thought he’d meet them individually first and then maybe, if things went well, be invited more officially later on. But no. It’s happening now.

There is a non-zero possibility that Kal will be sick at least once before the day comes.

Looking down reveals Martha still standing in front of him, close enough to hug—Kal half wants to, half fears overstepping some kind of boundary if he does—and still frowning at him. It isn’t the sort of frown that means disapproval, but it still makes Kal’s heart beat just a little faster. He swallows, ready to ask what’s going on and hopefully diffuse the situation, when Martha says, “Let’s go milk the cows, shall we? I’ll teach you how to do it by hand if you want.”

Nodding, Kal follows Martha to the door and, after slipping into a well-worn pair of boots, follows her to the barn. The Kent farm isn’t exactly a small one, but its main strength is crops, not dairy, and sixty head of cattle don’t call for a fully automated process, so the next two hours are spent letting eager cows into the milking stalls in batches of six, cleaning them up, hooking the milking machine to their udders, and waiting until they’re done to repeat the process with the next group. Both Kal and Martha remain silent during that time, focused on trying to deal with the cows’ insistence on trying to lick every inch of Kal’s face they can reach, even if it means they have to strain against the barriers holding them. By the end of it, though, they manage to get the animals back out in the field with minimal fuss—although Kal has to physically carry one of them out of the way—and are left with one unmilked cow standing in the stalls for Martha to demonstrate on.

“Wash your hands first,” Martha says as she pumps soap in her own palm, “then wash her up.”

She kicks a stool close to the cow while Kal complies with her instructions, careful not to get anything on his hands that would ruin the experience. He’s been here long enough to know the dangers of getting any germs into the milk, after all. He watches Martha get in position, wincing when she mutters imprecations directed against her lower back.

“Jon and I always used to talk about sinking a pit here,” she tells Kal over her shoulder, snorting along with him when he leans against the stall’s barrier and the cow gives him a big lick on the cheek. “Something to put the udders at arm level and reduce the backaches, but...well, he’s dead, and these things cost money.”

“I could do it,” Kal says, gently pulling the cow’s tongue away from his nose and letting it suck on his fingers instead. “I’d need to read up first, but between the speed and the muscles, I’m sure I could manage something.”

Shaking her head, Martha laughs and motions for Kal to pay attention before she bends down to the task, explaining how it works as she goes. Kal has to keep half of his attention on her and half on her patient, who, despite the terribly impractical configuration, is still trying to reach any piece of Kal’s exposed skin.

“I’d tell you to shed a sleeve and let her do her thing with your arm,” Martha says after a few minutes of that game, once she’s done with the first two udders, “but I’m afraid she’s already been more than spoiled enough for the day.”

Laughter bubbles out of Kal before he can even think of catching it, and he gives the cow’s ribs a fond pat while Martha gets up and pops her spine back into place.

“A smile, at last,” she says, stretching her arm. She’s smiling, too, just enough that Kal doesn’t blush too much as he looks down at the ground. “Now, are you going to tell me why you were wearing such a long face? I thought you wanted to meet the Justice League.”

“I do!” Kal says—promises, almost. “I do.”

It isn’t a lie. He’s been trying—he’s been wanting to make a real difference somewhere long before he came to Earth, and the Justice League does exactly that. Of course he’d want to meet them now he’s got what it takes to join. They help so many people already, the six of them, so helping them would be—but that’s the big question, isn’t it? Can Kal really help them? Sure, he’s strong, and he can see and hear a truly ridiculous amount of things nowadays; but if his time as Shadow has proven anything, it’s that material means are far from the only thing needed to be an efficient helper—let alone a hero.

Kal explains all of that while fumbling blindly with the cow’s udder, the way he has to almost press his cheeks into its flank to reach his goal a convenient excuse to avoid meeting Martha’s eyes. Not that he needs to, when he can still hear her snort, but it does make things...mildly less uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” Martha says, sounding anything but. “Did you think Bruce told me nothing about you before you came here?”

A pause, while Kal gapes.

“That boy may be genetically compelled to make everything into a secret, but he knows when a little sharing is necessary. I know how you got that patch job.”

Kal’s hand flies to his side without thinking, the skin barely ever itching anymore now that the scar is fading. It was quite the sight when he first came to Martha’s farm, purple and raised, stippled in curving lines like worms trying to crawl into him—and then the sun happened, and now it’s on the verge of being indistinguishable from a rug burn. It...would be a lie, to say he’d thought Martha could know any more about it than what he’d told her—which is absolutely nothing—but then again it would also be a lie to say the revelation truly surprises him. Knowing Bruce, it was quite foolish of him to expect anything else.

“It isn’t the same,” he tells Martha, pushing his shoulders into a shrug. “It’s—”

“Well, you’re going to have to explain that one to me,” Martha retorts, leaning against the cow’s stall the same way Kal did earlier, “because from what I heard there wasn’t that much difference between that Shadow of yours and Batman.”

“Of course there was!” Kal protests, barely even noticing when he gets to his feet. “There was a huge difference!”

“Where?”

“Everywhere!” Kal exclaims, wincing when his outburst startles the cow and he has to rescue the milk bucket before it can spill over. “See? You know what he’s like, what he can do! I can’t even stand in a barn right!”

“Kal-El,” Martha scolds, and Kal doesn’t know what it is about the name that makes him want to shrink into himself, sink into the ground until he vanishes entirely.

“Please don’t call me that,” he manages through the knot in his throat.

With a blink, Martha pauses—just long enough to take Kal’s face in and nod. It’s a relief, really, because the absolute truth is that he has no idea what brought on the abrupt sensation of loneliness, inadequacy, the background noise of sheer misery that used to color every instant of his life on Krypton. Fear rushes forward at that thought, a bone-deep sort of horror at the idea that he could, somehow, be made to go back to the life he used to lead in El, even as he misses the place so much, and his heart rate doesn’t lower back to something reasonable until Martha says, “Don’t you think that means I’ll let you go on with this self-deprecating nonsense. Just because you mean it doesn’t mean it’s true, do you hear me?”

He does, the words piercing through his chest and crawling up his throat with a slow, agonizing heat that makes him close his hands into fists, clench his jaw. Blink, against the moisture of his eyes.

“So you’re not Batman; so what? No one else is, either! Even his kids—”

“He’s got children?”

Martha gasps, and actually slaps herself in the forehead with a low groan. Kal watches her face redden, her shoulders stiffening to a worrying degree until she sighs, releasing the pressure all at once.

“Two sons,” she explains with the sort of tone reserved for things one is unwilling to share. “One of them’s a police officer in one of Gotham’s neighboring cities. Blü-something. The other...he’s been in the Wayne mausoleum for a few years, now.”

Dead. Taken from his father before his time, leaving nothing but mementos behind—an empty room, Kal supposes. A few treasured objects and many more casually abandoned around the house on the fateful morning. A brother and a father, mourning together until Bruce got down to the cave and its damp air, its red lights...the echoing clang of feet on the spiraling...metal...staircase.

The suit in the glass case.

Oh, Rao—the suit.

There’s—Bruce must have buried all the proof. Destroyed it, maybe. Kara burned almost everything her mother had left her, except for a ring she’s never taken off since. Kal wouldn’t have—couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to—but they’re a different sort of person, Bruce and Kara. There’s no proof, but the theory makes sense, and Kal presses a hand against his mouth to make sure the words won’t spill out—to make sure he won’t take the conversation further than it should go.

Martha knows—must know, at least. If she’s known Bruce since before—she has to know. That doesn’t mean she is the one Kal should talk about this with.

“My point is,” Martha says after the long, heavy silence has settled around them, “that the fact that you can’t be Batman is no indication of a supposed lack of qualifications for this sort of job. Would you say Wonder Woman has no qualifications?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You want to help in the same way that they do, and you have the power to do it,” Martha cuts in, the firmness of her tone belied by the softness of the palm she settles over Kal’s cheek. “Those are the only qualifications you need. You can learn the rest with them.”

“I don’t know—”

“Son,” Martha cuts in again, and the word pushes a shiver down Kal’s spine, “you’ve learned the English language and the essentials of American culture in less than two months; you’ve learned to use hands that can lift a tractor to catch an egg without breaking it in less than that—of course you can learn what they need you to learn.”

“Martha,” Kal tries, mountain rocks in his throat and burning water in his eyes, but Martha’s grip on his cheek tightens, even as her other hand comes up to cup his face too.

“I don’t know who put it into your head that you’re not just as good as anyone else in this world—and better than some, believe you me—but they were wrong. I haven’t seen a single thing about you that wouldn’t make any parent proud. And—and I don’t know,” Martha says, voice catching on something wet just as Kal closes his eyes, feeling like he’s about to rip out of his own skin, “maybe your parents aren’t proud of you—some people are idiots like that. But _I_ ’m proud of what you’ve accomplished before and since you came to Earth. I’m proud that I was there to help you through it, and I’m very proud to say I consider you family.”

The burn in Kal’s eyes spills over onto his cheeks, and he leans down until he can hide his face io Martha’s shoulder. With a great sigh, Martha reciprocates the gesture, looping her arms around himr, and they remain locked into a teary hug for a long, long, long time.

Superman gains traction. Kal told Bruce he’d prepare and he meant it: he doesn’t wait for Bruce’s book to start reading up on the best ways to deal with a house fire, first aid techniques, and as many anatomy books as he can get his hands on. No world has ever waited for anyone to be done with their education to keep on turning, however, and in the following week Kal gets involved in a variety of car accidents, three forest fires, four hold-ups, and twenty-three cases of pets of various shapes and sizes stuck in increasingly unexpected places. He also helps many people with their groceries or everyday tasks, but that’s more being a good neighbor than anything else, so it doesn’t particularly count as, uh, ‘heroing’, as Martha jokingly puts it. On Thursday night, he even helps a doctor give birth to her own baby by the side of a dirt road in northern Vietnam—it consists mostly of doing what he’s told in labored English, but he does still come out of it with an undeniable sense of...poetry, almost.

Not that the actual affair was very glamorous—between the blood and gunk and other various bodily fluids, no one should be expected to look good while giving birth. But there is a sense of pride there, an awed accomplishment at the thought of having contributed, even just a little, in the making of a new life. He wonders, for a while, if that was what his parents felt when he was born—if they at least enjoyed that part of the whole ordeal, before they became entirely disenchanted with him. That is, of course, a question he’s unlikely to ever get an answer to—but even then the pride doesn’t leave him for the rest of the week.

On Friday, Kal wakes up with one of the worst cases of jitters he’s ever experienced, and he’s about to explode from it when Martha takes pity on him, drags him to the kitchen, and proceeds to teach him how to make apple crumble and gooey butter cake. He does have to leave eventually, though, and at one in the afternoon, local time, he walks through the door, runs out of Martha’s backyard until he’s at a comfortable distance, and jumps into the sky with as much force as he can manage.

He gets a little disoriented by the sonic boom at first—he’s never provoked one by jumping before—and figuring out how to fly on purpose proves tricky enough that Kal almost crashes down into a wheat field. He catches himself at the last second, though, rises until he’s just below the cloud cover, and heads toward Gotham.

He enters Bruce’s cave via a door installed under a lake, and touches down right next to the landing platform for Bruce's plane. There’s a motorbike there that Kal has never seen, parked next to a muddy blue four-by-four, but other than that, the cave remains as it was in Kal’s memories. He floats over the water in silence, popping up to get a closer look at the bats sleeping on the ceiling, and touches down again when he reaches the upper level of the cave.

Kal was right, before—this is a space that only pretends to be an armory. What weapons he can see haven’t been used in a while, and the suits on the back walls are all variations of Bruce’s Batman uniform—older versions, perhaps. And there, in the middle—Kal swallows. The build of the suit is slight, shorter than Batman’s. A younger person; he should have deduced that much from the get-go. A younger man. There are scratches in various spots on the red and green design, a bullet hole in the right shoulder...and the words in dulled yellow, mocking Batman—Bruce—every time he goes through that cave reminding him—Gods. No wonder the man tries so hard to make himself as engaging as a prison door.

Someone gasps to Kal’s left, and he turns to smile at the Flash—Barry—who is all but gaping at him through the glass. Kal exchanges a smile with Diana, too, who is standing by Bruce’s large office chair, and then he floats inside the room, multiple monitoring screens glowing as red as Krypton’s sun. Arthur and Cyborg have settled over a small console with a game of...checkers, and John the Green Lantern is apparently completing crosswords while sipping on a cup of tea. In his chair, Bruce—or, well, Batman, at the moment—doesn’t seem too pleased about the rest of the group’s nonchalance, but he must have decided it wasn’t important enough to point out, because he doesn’t protest when Barry zips from one end of the room to the other with a crackle and a strong gust of wind.

“Oh my Goooooooooood,” he says in a high-pitched voice, grin almost too big for his face. “You can fly!”

“I can fly too,” Cyborg points out, only for Barry to spin toward him.

“Are you ever going to fly me anywhere, Victor?”

“I’m not your personal jet, Barry.”

Barry makes a show of turning his nose up in the air before he turns back to Kal, “Victor is a bit of a killjoy sometimes,” he says in a stage whisper, “but I like him anyway, I don’t know why.”

“Lay off, Barry,” Victor protests—without heat, though he does duck his head to hide something that looks suspiciously like a smile.

“If you could all settle down.”

There is more than a hint of command in Batman’s voice and Kal, after a lifetime of conditioning, doesn’t even blink as he orders his suit back into civilian clothing and uses the excess material for a lightweight chair. (“Oh my god,” says Barry, and though he’s the only one who actually makes a sound about it, Kal still notices at least Arthur and John raising an eyebrow.)

“First item of business,” Batman announces, as soon as everyone is seated and mostly turned toward him, “everyone’s monthly—what, Barry?”

“I have new items I’d like to submit for consideration.”

“I’m sure we can all wait until after the meeting to ask about the pie,” John says, amusement lacing his tone, before anyone else has a chance to speak.

“Smells like apple crumble to me,” Diana says—Kal isn’t sure, but he thinks he sees her smirk, just a little, when Batman’s jaw twitches.

“Okay, well, about the crumble—”

“Later, Barry,” Victor says.

Kal sees him frown when Arthur catches his eyes with a ‘how do you deal with this’ sort of expression, but the topic does seem to be effectively dropped for the time being, which allows Flash to continue:

“Second proposed item: I’d like to officially challenge Superman here to a race. Employing the scientific method. For science.”

“Done,” Kal says before Bruce has time to speak, “ _if_ we can keep this meeting on track.”

Kal smiles at Batman, whose face immediately hardens into a scowl. Kal expected as much, but the sight still stings, and he has to bite down on a sigh. Clearly, they won’t be going back to being friends right away. He nods at Batman anyway, just a small tip of the head to confirm his support, and makes sure to keep his body language as professional as possible while Batman readjusts his notes. Good thing the physical attitudes communicating seriousness and attention are mostly the same in El and in the United States.

“Thank you, Superman,” Batman says like the words were stuck to his tooth and took it along for the ride when they exited his mouth. “First item of business: monthly reports.”

The groan that erupts from the table is at least as much attitudinal as it is audible, but Batman remains steadfastly undeterred, and Kal manages—though not without some trepidation—to keep his face mostly neutral. Reporting on anything, let alone anything of importance, is, after all, a first for him. He listens to everyone’s accounts of their months intently, sinking further into Superman’s solemn demeanor with every word that passes. By the time his turn comes, Kal’s nerves have left him entirely, and he’s able to give his own report without a hitch. Batman, of course, doesn’t exactly praise him, but he doesn’t ask too many follow-up questions or point out any flaws in Superman’s account, which definitely counts as a win.

Diana said, in the ice cream parlor, that the Justice League didn’t have an established hierarchy as such, and the truth of it is apparent in the comments of various degrees of utility made during reports, and the haphazard way they’ve all settled in Bruce’s space, without regard for who sits where except each of their preferences. There is, however, very clear leadership in place, and that’s why Superman is utterly unsurprised that no one even thinks of protesting once Batman suggests moving on to the second item.

“Which is the League’s headquarters.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to having more space,” Arthur says where he’s reclining against something that doesn’t look like it should be reclined on. “Hopefully somewhere a little less creepy.”

“You’ve got to admit the cave is a little...” John sweeps the space around them with his gaze, the satiny fabric of his uniform shimmering with the movement, before he purses his lips and concludes with: “Gloomy.”

“We’ve already agreed to change headquarters,” Batman says, causing a smirk to bloom on Diana’s face—there is mischief in her eyes when Superman catches her gaze, but she grows serious again as Batman continues. “The question now becomes where we want these headquarters to be.”

One of the screens behind Batman changes with a click, discarding what Superman thinks might have been old reports in favor of a set of blueprints and simulations. The projected building looks old-fashioned, from what Superman knows of Earth architecture, but also quite large and isolated from the rest of Gotham. Smaller windows and annotations hint at plans for private quarters, training facilities, and even something of a restaurant—who would have staffed it, Superman has no clue, but he knows Batman well enough by now to realize there are probably multiple possibilities built in the project.

“The original plan was to use the foundations of Wayne Manor to build the League’s headquarters for all of us, with room to grow—”

“Assuming anyone wants to join,” Arthur snorts, and while the others look at him with various levels of reproach, he clings to the provocation until Superman says:

“I’d like to.”

“That’s our third item,” Batman says, cutting the tangent off before it has a chance to get out of control. “The point is, we—that means you too, Aquaman—agreed it would be best for any headquarters of ours to leave room for several more additions. Building over Wayne Manor would allow for that, as well as future expansion, if needed. It does have a few downsides, however.”

“We’d be based on American soil,” Diana says, as if on cue. “That gives your government leverage against us, should they decide the Justice League needs to be leashed.”

“It’d make Gotham even more vulnerable,” Victor adds. “This city already has the highest concentration of megalomaniacs with weird gimmicks the world over—and that’s not poetic license. We settle in on Wayne property, the wrong kind of people are bound to hear about it someday, and then what? We got lucky with Steppenwolf, but I’m not too crazy about hoping the next guy will be that stupid.”

“Precisely,” Batman says with a terse nod. “Not to mention building headquarters on my private property makes the League legally and financially vulnerable should anything happen to me.”

“Enter: Superman.” John grins, winking in Superman’s direction. “Our good prince in primary-colored armor.”

Superman acknowledges the joke, but doesn’t respond to it one way or another, well aware that now is not the moment for it...and not entirely sure he finds it funny, besides. Behind Batman, the screen changes again to a picture of Kal’s ship, a staggering mass of dark greens on the black backdrop of space, sunlight barely reflecting off the material. It’s strange to see it from this angle. It’s inspired by wildlife, as are the vast majority of El’s—of Krypton’s—designs, and from what Superman has learned he suspects the Justice League members are also thinking of whales when they look at it. Still, from the outside—it never did feel that massive from the inside. Not even when he first stumbled upon it as a teen. Now, silhouetted against Earth’s golden sun, it has taken on an otherworldly sheen, a mysticism brimming with potential that makes Superman shiver.

“There are several points in favor of this project,” Batman begins. “First of all, it would address our concerns about the repercussions of the Justice League’s presence on geopolitical relationships—”

“Displace them, you mean?”

Superman is not the type of man to squirm under surprised gazes, but he does experience a very Kal-like shiver when the others turn to him. He does manage to keep his cool, though, and keep his voice in the lower register he picked for that persona as he explains:

“The ship is still well within Earth’s space territory, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But do you really think knowing the Justice League is hovering over them won’t catch the attention of some other governments? It doesn’t seem likely that China or North Korea will be very enthusiastic about this initiative.”

“He’s got a point,” Arthur says. “And that’s without even talking about other so-called local government.”

“Green Lantern archives corroborate J’onn’s story,” John interjects from his seat. “If there’s still life left on Mars, the Corps doesn’t know about it.”

“Regardless,” Batman says with a slight nod in John’s direction, “we’re going to have to start thinking about what to tell the press if and when they find out about the two literal aliens working with us. That’ll be a point for another meeting, however. Right now, we’re discussing our headquarters. Political problems aside—and I think we can all agree there will be plenty, regardless of where we settle down—that kind of vantage point would bring tremendous advantage to the League.”

“And how do we get people to and from your little watchtower?” Victor says, slapping Barry’s hand away from his pocket and what turns out to be a packet of sweets. “I might be able to go to space, assuming my circuits don’t freeze, but the rest of you are kind of stuck here.”

“I’m pretty sure J’onn mentioned something about teleportation,” John offers, pulling his phone out of Rao knows where, presumably to check on previous notes. “I could ask him about it during his next Settler’s appointment—it’s due next week, anyway. Speaking of,” he adds, turning to Kal, “you and I need to have a chat, and soon.”

Kal blushes. It doesn’t take as long as he’d feared to explain his situation to the League—they might never have moved from one planet to the other, but they’re all familiar with the concept of immigration, and since John Stewart is the only known Green Lantern of Earth, it’s obvious he’ll be the one to supervise Kal’s settlement project.

“You know,” John tells Barry when he asks about it, “keeping track of where he settles down, what name he uses in his day-to-day life. That sort of thing.”

Oh, Rao. The name thing. Kal had completely forgotten about that. And this isn’t like Superman, either—he can’t just toss it to the press and call it a day, if only because he has less than no desire for the press to know who he is out of costume...although of course, the whole thing would probably be much simpler if he had any idea what sort of name he’d like in the first place, but—

“That’s not the point,” Batman says. “What we’re here to discuss is—”

“It’s to know if we want the headquarters to be your house or this—what did Victor call it? The watchtower,” Arthur interrupts, voice booming with boredom loudly enough that the one glass wall of the room shakes with it. “Personally I’d rather sleep on a cactus than on your bed, so I’m in favor.”

“I mean, the idea of living in your manor’s cool and all,” Barry tells Batman with a slightly apologetic grimace, “but you can’t beat a space station. I’m in, too.”

“We’re not voting today,” Batman grits out—Superman hears the leather of his glove creak as his fist tightens on his lap. “We’re assessing—"

“I think you’ll have a better chance just sending a report over to the team,” Wonder Woman mutters while Barry tries to engage Victor in a debate over whether Superman’s ship has the potential to be as cool as the Enterprise.

“I’ll do that,” Batman replies, jaw still tight enough to chew glass. “In the meantime, our third item?”

“What is it?” John asks, clearly trying to maintain a minimum of professionalism while Superman attempts to stare Barry into behaving himself a little better.

“The Superman’s relationship with the Justice League.”

Superman really, really doesn’t blush—but the part of him that’s Kal does, and it takes him several seconds to get his face back under some semblance of control when both Barry and Diana pronounce themselves in favor of him joining. Arthur and Victor are mostly acting indifferent, and John says something about papers and regulations, but at least no one outright objects to the idea. No one, that is, until Batman says:

“You’re all assuming we’ll be offering him a position. We haven’t decided that yet.”

Superman stares, flabbergasted, while at least two of the other League members protest on his behalf. Someone says something about the advantages of having one more flying person on the team, but the rush of blood in Superman’s ears drowns the words out—and he’s fairly sure Batman is in the middle of a very, very rational explanation when he asks:

“Why?”

There must be more strain in his tone than he meant to leave there, because the assembly instantly falls silent, eyes turning to him with something that looks a lot like apprehension on his behalf hovering around the edges. Batman, if at all possible, straightens even further.

“You’re too green.”

“I’ve been in this sort of business for eight years,” Superman replies, and he’s entirely positive he doesn’t imagine the way Barry gasps at the rebuke.

“You don’t know anything about Earth—”

“You didn’t know anything about El when you decided to investigate the Melokariel Proposition,” Superman points out while Barry—or Flash, or both of him—makes a frighteningly high-pitched noise.

“I knew what I was doing,” Batman grits out, though it’s difficult to say whether the change in his voice is due to frustration or sheer disbelief that anyone—let alone Kal—would dare to dismiss two of his arguments in a row.

“Well, so do I,” Superman replies, turning toward Bruce as the world narrows down to their conversation. “You can quiz me if you’d like—I’ve spent the last week learning about first response efforts and human anatomy. I’ve learned Spanish—”

“In a week?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impo—” Batman grunts, quite obviously frustrated.

In the microsecond he takes to pinch at the bridge of his nose Superman hears Aquaman snort and recline further into his seat.

“Look, that’s not the point,” Batman says after a brief pause. “The point is, you’re rash, impulsive, and untrained—”

“You trained me yourself!”

“We have no idea how far your strength goes!” Batman counters, voice rising to match Superman’s volume. “You keep taking unnecessary risks—”

“We’ve talked about that robbery, Batman,” Superman all but groans, a small part of him proud that he didn’t resort to calling the man by his first name. “It was neither a risk—”

“They shot you in the face!” Batman shouts. “You could have died!”

“I accidentally wrecked a tractor by standing behind it!” Superman shouts back, rising to his feet as soon as Batman does, too incensed to worry about propriety, or strength, or anything that isn’t the sun-hot burn of irritation in his veins. “And even if it had really been a risk, which we both know it wasn’t—that man would have died! Putting myself in that bullet's path might have been many things, but it was not unnecessary!”

“No one would have blamed you for taking some time to assess the situation!”

“I would have!” Superman allows himself three harsh, heaving breaths, before he repeats: “I would have.”

The silence around him is absolute, as if even Bruce’s machines had felt the tension in the air and decided to make themselves even more discreet than they already were. Wonder Woman is looking at them in a way Superman can’t quantify as anything but skeptical, and the other four are mostly just gaping at the sight—but in all honesty, at this point both Superman and Kal are too incensed to care.

“Meeting adjourned,” Batman says at last, more tense than Kal has ever seen him. The rest of the League hesitates for just a second, until Batman barks: “Everyone out.”

Wonder Woman doesn’t look like she’s putting particular haste into leaving, but she’s the only one. Barry barely mumbles something about seeing the rest of them next time before leaving in a flash, Victor hot on his heels. John floats out with reasonably dignified haste, and Diana throws a Look at Bruce before she walks out of the room, the blue car’s engines roaring to life just as she reaches the threshold.

“That meant you, too,” Batman says, pushing Superman to snort, throat still tight with the fight.

“Yes, I gathered that. I just wanted to say—you’re the one who invited me here. If you didn’t want me around, you could just have said so.”

He should—it feels like he should be able to pursue the conversation in a calmer, more rational manner. Like he shouldn’t let the burn in his throat and in his cheeks get the better of him...but Batman doesn’t answer—Bruce doesn’t answer—and Kal deflates out of Superman’s persona, eyes burning as he turns on his heel and flies away like a coward.

He hides away in the settlement ship afterwards. The cold there is too intense for anyone on the team to bear—except maybe Diana but why would she come look for him here in the middle of the Arctic?—and even if it weren’t the security system won’t let them in until its commander, which is Superman, orders it to. It’s the perfect place to be left alone with his thoughts, to have time to think things through...and, Kal realizes, the perfect place to be miserable.

It doesn’t start out that way—the distance is a great idea at first, and the relative silence of the Arctic makes for a helpful dampener for the noises of the rest of the world. In time, Kal is sure, he’ll come to relish the opportunity for some quiet. Right now, though, on the heel of Batman’s not-so-subtle rejection, the mix of Federal and Ulian alphabets on the command consoles and walls turns from comforting to a painful reminder of Kal’s many, many inadequacies. In the end, he all but flees the ship and decides to run around the world for a while.

He goes from one country to another, plucking people out of disaster zones after natural catastrophes, hurricanes after floods after earthquakes, until his head buzzes with it. Eventually, though, the rush of purpose, the heady sense of accomplishment, fades away. There’s no room for Kal’s struggles when Superman is busy proving to the planet that he’s here to help and here to stay. There’s no room for Kal’s anger when Superman has to be mild, even-tempered, unthreatening in every possible way until everyone forgets he could blow them to bits with something as simple as a sneeze. To an extent, Superman’s calm demeanor, his self-assurance bleed into Kal enough that he can almost fool himself into thinking he’s over the whole thing until, three days in, he realizes Superman is on his way to turning just as rote and automatic as Shadow was, in his last few days.

The realization brings him up short—jerks him out of a feeling that’s as terrifying as it is familiar—and Kal has to spend a long time ranting about the whole ordeal to Martha before he’s calmed down enough to stop panicking. He’s destroyed a full tub of ice cream by then, something he tries to apologize for until Martha tells him not to sweat it.

“You know I’m happy to help, sweetheart,” she says with a shrug when Kal looks at her with intense puzzlement. “And besides, I’ve got to admit there’s something a little funny about someone with your build complaining about a stubborn coworker with his mouth full of French vanilla.”

Kal tries to resist glancing at Martha’s helping of black cherry ice cream, but she tuts at him with an exaggerated grin, clutching the carton closer to her chest before she warns:

“Don’t even think about it, young man. I have a spoon and I’ll smack you with it if I have to.”

Kal could steal the entire thing from her if he wanted to, of course. He could rob Martha blind and be out of reach within minutes, if he really put his mind to it. But the very thought makes him snort, and he concedes the point—and any claim on the black cherry—with raised hands and a rueful grin. The exchange does have the benefit of lightening his heart, though, and Kal’s next sigh is more contented than anything else as he lies back against the couch, careful not to press too hard against it. He’s not...it’d be a lie, to say that he’s forgotten all about Bruce’s attitude two days ago—or that he hasn’t noticed there’s been nothing but radio silence between them since—but it’s grown a little lighter all the same, and Kal is ready to appreciate that.

“It’s still bothering you, isn’t it?” Martha says, after a bit.

Kal groans and lets his head fall backward.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Martha, fully aware that he sounds more sulky than genuinely pained by his own attitude. “I just can’t get it out of my head—he was so—urgh. Sorry.”

“I’d tell you to stop apologizing,” Martha says, the hint of a chuckle in her voice, “but I doubt it’d do much good...What if I told you I’ve got the perfect distraction instead?”

Kal lifts his head back up at the words, looking at Martha with undisguised curiosity only to find her sporting a grin that wouldn’t be out of place on—what’s the phrase again? Oh, right. The canary that got the cat. No, wait—the cat that got the canary. That sounds more sensible. Either way, Martha looks a little proud of herself, like she’s about to pull the best prank the world has ever seen on Kal; and it’s only trust that she won’t do anything to hurt him that keeps him from making his excuses and retreating to his bedroom.

He obeys Martha’s gesture to follow her instead, tailing her outside and across the yard to the storehouse, inside, and then up an old wooden ladder to an empty hayloft. The walls of it are raw, bits of straw lying discarded on the floor among bird droppings and something that looks an awful lot like a dead mouse in the dim light of the evening. Kal follows the slant of the roof from a set of wide doors to the left-hand wall, and then down to a pile of brand-new cans of paint.

“I wanted to wait for a special occasion,” Martha says when Kal looks at her in incomprehension, “but I figure it’ll do the most good now.”

“Uh, Martha, I…I’m not sure I understand….”

Even in the fading light it’s easy for Kal to see how Martha’s face grows more serious, her smile just a little smaller, and yet...more important, somehow, at the same time.

“Look, I know this arrangement was supposed to be temporary,” she says after taking a deep breath in, “and I’ll understand completely if and when you want to move somewhere else, but I thought—I wanted to make it clear that I want you to have a place on this farm and in my life. Permanently.”

“What?” Kal asks, take aback. “But the hay—”

“Most of it is stored above the barn already,” Martha says with a dismissive shrug, “and a lot of the rest I just hand over to Mr. Abernathy because he helps with the harvest. I’ll figure something out for what’s left—or you can help me build a new shed, if you’d like. Either way...I figured this would be a better use of the space. If you’re interested, that is.”

Kal tries hard to keep the tears that well up in his eyes from falling onto Martha’s shoulder when he presses her into a shuddering hug. The fact that his own shoulder feels damp, however, means he doesn’t really mind too much when he fails.

Kal spends the next day in the hayloft, in between Superman’s interventions, one ear on the radio and Kryo’s alerts from the Ship as he scrubs the walls and floor squeaky clean, sanding them only slightly over human speed. He’s mostly done with the preparation work by dinnertime, and laughs himself silly as Martha recounts the work she and Jonathan had to put in on the farm after a particularly nasty storm.

“I’m very glad I was forced to sleep by an open oven door in my twenties rather than later in life, let me tell you,” she says, and Kal snorts at the mental image—a disheveled all-but-newlywed Jonathan with his clothes covered in paint and wood shavings, collapsing on the floor next to his exhausted veterinarian of a wife, huddled in front of a working oven in the last dregs of autumn.

The picture is as heartwarming as it could be distressing, the biting cold and fear of failing to finish the repairs before winter long since worn away from the memory—and Kal smiles at his hands, clutched around a mug on the table. Martha chuckles, too, emptying the last of her hot cocoa with a satisfied smile before she says:

“He’d have liked you as much as I do, you know. I’ve got absolutely no doubt about that.”

Kal looks down at his cup again, heat creeping up his neck and into his chest, sweeter than anything as it spreads into his limbs and makes him feel almost as invulnerable as he actually is. _I’m proud to call you family_ , Martha said all those days back, and to hear—for her to think—Kal swallows. It isn’t—it won’t ever be the same as hearing this from his birth parents. To hear Jor-El or Lara Lor-Van say anything even close to that—he breathes in deep. Just the thought of it aches, the pain barely dulled by a lifetime of training; and not just because it’s impossible, either. There is too much pain there, too much unanswered need and longing for an about-face not to cut deeper than Kal cares to find out.

Martha’s words, her easy acceptance, the unconditional nature of her affection and of her care—of her love, even—won’t ever be the same as receiving such a sentiment from anyone in the El family, but it doesn’t hurt the way that would. It doesn’t—of course, it can’t exist without taking Kal’s entire history into account...but the pain there feels more like healing than an infection, a necessary step on the path of recovery. Kal sighs with it, one hand coming up to rest on his chest before he realizes it, and Martha frowns again.

“Are you all right?” she asks. “Should I not have—”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Kal hurries to reassure her. “It’s just—there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, I think. In the future. I just—I need to give it a little more thought before I can really...share it, so to speak.”

“Oh,” Martha answers, clearly trying to rein her wariness in, “of course. I understand.”

“Thank you, Martha.”

It takes a bit of time before they can go back to the easygoing mood of their early evening, but Martha’s yellow kitchen—with its pale chairs and the chips in the wooden cupboards and the homemade pottery dishes drying on the rack next to the sink—has become such a place of freedom to Kal, of safety, that he doesn’t even realize he could fear failing to recover the mood until they’ve already done it.

Four days after his disastrous first encounter with the Justice League, Kal decides to swallow his pride and be the bigger caped crusader in this ridiculous feud with Bruce. Well, technically he did sort of come by that decision on day three, calling Bruce in the middle of sanding the hayloft’s loading doors. He didn’t really commit to it, however, and after a few calls had gone to voicemail—to his immense relief—he gave up and decided to wait more.

This time, though, he’s truly decided to make things right; so, after Bruce has ignored four more phone calls and Kal has moved Martha’s old but serviceable pull-out couch out of the living room—“I’ve been looking for an excuse to change it for ages, and Bruce saved me the money for a replacement tractor, so just take the damn thing off my hands, please"—and into his new spot on the farm, he turns the suit back into Superman’s costume and flies towards Gotham City.

He makes a pass over Blüdhaven on his way in. It isn’t, strictly speaking, on the way, but night is falling over there, and spending the past four days thinking about little else but Batman gave Kal more than enough time and reason to wonder about the mysterious son who exiled himself here. He doesn’t intrude—wouldn’t know how to introduce himself even if he wanted to—but he does take a look at the city. It doesn’t seem that different from Gotham, similar signs of poverty and political neglect marring the streets despite what Kal has seen described as tremendous efforts on many people’s parts to help the citizens make better lives for themselves. It seems almost too on-the-nose a project to take up for Batman’s son, but then who’s Kal to judge? He certainly can’t claim to have only picked easy projects in the past.

He leaves the city behind, eventually, promising himself to come back, and heads to Batman’s cave. It’s a relief not to have to dodge any alarms that he can detect, especially when the more paranoid part of his brain had become convinced he might be facing lethally dissuasive measures upon his return. It is a surprise, however, to fly and in and run into Wonder Woman as she all but stalks out of Batman’s main operations room with an impressive scowl on her face.

It melts away when she sees Superman standing there, though, and the force of her smile is almost enough to stun as she says:

“There you are! I’ve been trying to reach you, but you’re very good at being elusive, Superman.”

“I apologize,” Superman tells her with a bow of his head. “I’m afraid I got sort of...caught up. In various matters.”

“’Various’ wouldn’t be my first choice of word to describe Batman,” Wonder Woman says with a wink, “but I suppose to each their own.”

“I suppose so,” Superman concedes. Then, reluctant to leave the truth unacknowledged: “he made some good points, you know. Mostly good points, in fact. I guess I just sort of...overreacted, a little bit.”

“Well,” Wonder Woman says with a small smile and a shrug, “as long as you’ve made your peace with it.”

Superman has a feeling the Cave may sound like he did the very opposite of that in the next few minutes, but he nods anyway, unwilling to drag things out. Diana replaces Wonder Woman, then, grin tipping further into mischief, a spark of almost childish glee blinking to life in her eyes as she says:

“Once you’re done, the others and I would like to meet you again—properly, this time. If you don’t mind.”

“You mean—as civilians?”

Kal flinches when his hesitation makes Diana blink, but he doesn’t let it push him into pretending he’s not feeling slightly off-kilter, even if it means Diana’s smile is slow to come back.

“Yes,” she says, “as civilians. Would that be all right with you?”

“Oh...sure,” Superman says, the role pushing some of Kal’s hesitation out of his posture. “That’d be great. Thank you for the invitation.”

“Well, then, do let us know when you're done here and I’ll send you my location.”

Smiling again, Wonder Woman offers Superman a small rectangle of thick, embossed paper introducing her as “Diana Prince, head curator,” with the British Museum’s logo in the upper right corner. Two phone numbers line up at the bottom, and Diana taps the second one, which, Superman guesses, must be a mobile phone. Nothing he’s seen so far makes him think this could be a personal number, but it still feels nice to have this tiny piece of connection to her, one that doesn’t go through Batman, or Bruce. It isn’t much, of course, and it isn’t like Superman—let alone Kal—resents Bruce’s presence or anything of the sort. It’s just—it’s nice to feel like he’s putting down roots, is all.

“I will,” Superman says, and waves goodbye as Diana floats out of the cave and into the early afternoon sun.

Then, breathing in, he makes his way through the cave and up the stairs. He walks there, unwilling to risk upsetting Bruce by flying, and can’t help but pause in front of the glass case where the suit looms over the rest of the room. It’s almost menacing in its emptiness, the gloves gripped tight around a discarded weapon—but Kal remembers who used to wear this, now. Tries to imagine what it would have been like, for him to lose Kara. What it would have felt like, looking at the clothes she died in—for that is exactly what these are, the yellow words leave no doubt about that—and the mere thought of it burns at the corners of his eyes. Not just the familiar salt-sting of tears, but the other heat, too, the one that pressed at the backs of his eyes after the tractor, and a handful of time since, after his argument with Bruce.

Kal swallows it down, turns to the main den and its Krypton-like red light, and sighs as he knocks on the glass door.

“I ate one of them,” Bruce says, clearly distracted by something under his microscope, “so spare me the lecture, please.”

“I’m fairly sure Alfred prepares two sandwiches because one isn’t enough,” Kal retorts with what he hopes is a passable effort at keeping his voice even. Ish.

Besides, even slightly wilted, the sandwich on the forgotten tray looks delicious, and not saying _something_ in favor of eating it would feel almost as bad as snubbing the food a second time. It might be a bias, but it isn’t one Kal cares to correct—and if Bruce’s expression is anything to go by, not one Bruce cares to dispute, either.

“What are you doing here?” he asks instead, sounding more wary than actually sullen.

“I...I wanted to talk to you about the, uh—the meeting. The other day.”

Scowling again, Bruce turns back to his microscope, shoulders tightening with a shift of muscles that's actually audible to Kal. Kal blinks himself back inside his body, the surprise of the sound all the more unwelcome for how rare these things have become, and he closes his eyes against the abrupt burn in them. He hasn’t found out what that sensation is leading up to, yet, and he’s got no desire to get on with that part of his evolution, let alone within a small enclosed space where all he wants to look at is Bruce.

“I’d think you made your stance very clear,” Bruce says, tone flirting with the edge of a mutter, as if he were trying to make himself sound more...professional than he really feels like being. It brings a smile to Kal’s mouth as he answers:

“I did. So did you. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m wondering whether maybe we didn’t get it all wrong anyway.”

“I don’t get things wrong,” Bruce protests, head coming up and away from the microscope, the white lenses of the cowl retracted to make observation possible.

Other than that and his general demeanor, Bruce is in full Batman regalia—almost ready for a meeting. Part of Kal wants to rise to the same level—keep the suit and the solid voice and the straight shoulders on—but the last time he did that turned out to be...well, he doesn’t want to use the word ‘disaster’, but doesn’t quite find himself able to come up with an adequate alternative. So, ignoring the instinctive urge to make himself bigger than he is and let Superman handle things for a while, he turns the suit back into jeans and a plaid shirt, a white t-shirt peeking through the open lapels. He keeps his posture natural, without straightening his spine but without slipping into the excessive slouch he’s been practicing either. Nothing but Kal, wrapped in all his shortcomings and surprisingly irritable temper.

“Maybe you don’t,” he tells Bruce, “but you don’t always see everything either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying,” Kal replies with a shrug, struggling to keep his arms uncrossed and shoving his hands in his pockets instead. “You didn’t realize I was Shadow until I took the helmet off.”

Bruce snorts at that, which, considering the exact circumstances of Shadow’s unmasking, Kal can understand, however begrudgingly. The point, however, was to remind Bruce of his own potential for failure, and that’s been accomplished, so Kal doesn’t dwell on it. What he says instead is:

“I don’t always see everything, either.”

What gave him away, Kal will probably never find out. Possibly nothing. He can’t have been the first to notice the memorial in the middle of the cave, although now that he thinks of it he might well be the first to have actually hinted at it out loud. Alfred, after all, has been in Bruce’s service since Bruce was a boy, and would have no need to ask about what happened, let alone figure out a way to let Bruce know he knew. None of that, of course, tempers the glare Bruce fixes him with, and so there’s nothing for it but breathe in deep, and hope for Bruce’s mercy when he says:

“I know what the suit means. Some of it.”

It’s remarkable, really, what super senses allow you to pick up on. The Kal that lived on Krypton would never have realized just how deeply tense Bruce grows at the words.

“Get out,” he growls, but this time Kal forces himself to stand his ground.

“No.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, but no. We’ve been putting off this conversation long enough.”

“I haven’t been putting anything off,” Bruce replies, slipping around Kal to get to his computer and busy himself with...something, presumably. “There’s nothing to say here. You’re not ready to join the League—”

“Actually,” Kal says, raising his eyes to the ceiling in the vain hope that Rao will find and help him even here, “I think you’re the one who’s not ready.”

Bruce reacts, perhaps a little predictably, like Kal just stabbed him in the back and then insulted his House, which is to say that he whips around and stares at him with what, on Bruce, is practically a slack jaw. Sticking to English for this conversation was definitely a good idea, then, because this has to be the most intense display of emotion Kal has seen on Bruce’s face since the night they left Krypton and—and then Bruce slams him into the wall.

It isn’t painful, of course—nothing really is, these days—and it only worked because Kal wasn’t actually expecting it, but the sheer rage on Bruce’s face stops him from saying as much. He did come here to make things better, after all, and if that requires gritting his teeth through a number of uncomfortable moments, then so be it.

“What,” and Batman’s growl is rumbling out with no small amount of threat in it, “is that supposed to mean?”

“You heard me,” Kal repeats, forcing himself to keep his voice as level as possible without dipping into Superman’s register. “I think you’re not ready for me to join the Justice League.”

“How dare you—”

“I’m not like him.”

Batman—Bruce—stops again, gaping, hands still caught in the collar of Kal’s shirt as his mouth opens and closes on empty air. Kal doesn’t need to actually listen to his heartbeat to guess it’s probably going for a speed prize right about now, and so he continues instead, softening his voice:

“I don’t know what happened to him, exactly. Only that he was your son, and what the armor tells me.”

“Stop,” Bruce manages, voice as rough as broken glass.

“I’m sure he was as well-trained as it was possible to be—”

“Shut up—”

“I’m not human, Bruce.”

“Shut _up—_ ”

“I can’t be killed.”

“ _Shut up!_ ” Bruce shouts, pushing himself away from Kal with enough force to send himself stumbling into his super computer. “Shut up, shut up, shut up! You don’t know what—he was—don’t you dare—”

“Bruce,” Kal tries raising his hands in appeasement, and freezes when Bruce physically recoils from him. “I wasn’t—I’m not trying to insult him, and I know it hurts—”

“You know nothing about J—you know _nothing_ about him,” Bruce spits, somewhere on the edge of a scream, the beating of his heart a painful sound at the back of Kal’s hearing. “You don’t even know what it’s like to have a _family_!”

The last word explodes into the shout Bruce was clearly struggling against, clattering against the walls of the room like a gunshot. It leaves the same sort of silence behind it, too shocking to even remember there is a world outside of stillness, and Kal almost—almost—fails to notice the soft padding of Alfred’s footsteps on the other side of the door, the sharpness of his inhale.

What he couldn’t miss, even if he wanted to, is the way Bruce tenses and then crumbles under all his armors, sagging down against his desk and then onto the floor, breathing harsh and heavy, the tremors in his hands so fine it takes Kal’s super senses to see them. Kal stands there for a second, ignoring Alfred entirely, until he finally gathers the courage to take the few steps that separate him from Bruce, kneel, and allow a hand to hover close to Bruce's knee.

“You’re right, I barely know what it’s like to have a family,” he says—the sound Bruce makes then is...Kal can’t tell if it’s a protest, or pain, or some mixture of the two, but the rawness of it makes him wince in sympathy. His chest aches. “I don’t—you know what my life was like. I’ve only ever had Kara, and things with her were...complicated.”

Not for lack of love so much as lack of understanding. Caring about someone in a way that doesn’t suit them sometimes leaves scars just as deep as not caring would; that much, Kal knows.

“I’m learning, though. I’ve got Martha now,” he says, unexpectedly delighted by how much he means it. “Martha...and you.”

This time, the sound that rises from Bruce’s throat is definitely wounded. Kal’s hand crosses the gap towards Bruce’s knee and squeezes it, perhaps a shade too far on the strength scale. Bruce doesn’t protest, though. Doesn’t react at all, really, except for the way his head bows further, his hands retreating towards his chest.

“I don’t know—I have no idea how you feel about him. But I do know how I felt at the thought of Martha getting hurt because of me.”

“That,” Bruce manages from the confines of his knees, “that’s not—I don’t—”

“All right,” Kal concedes readily, unwilling to let this scene go on longer than absolutely necessary, “you don’t. But just in case you did—I’m invulnerable, Bruce. I can send over the data from the suit and the settlement ship if you want. I don’t think even a bomb could hurt me now, and my muscles aren’t anywhere close to being done mutating.”

“I’m not—”

“Fine, you’re not,” Kal cuts in, unable to restrain his irritation in the face of Bruce’s shaken stubbornness. “Well, in that case, you’re going to have to get over yourself, Batman. I want to help people, and that’s what I’m going to do, with or without your blessing...and you won’t be able to say I’m too green forever.”

Kal hesitates, but he does give Bruce’s knee a last squeeze before he straightens up. He’s not quite sure Bruce really does tell him to get out, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take a genius, after all, to realize this conversation—inasmuch as it can be called that—has been more than hard on Bruce’s nerves, and Kal has no desire to add to that. Bruce’s answer will come when he’s ready for it. In the meantime, leaving him in peace so he can lick his wounds and sort himself out is the least Kal can do.

He leaves the room with an apologetic grimace for Alfred, who is going to have to deal with this particular mess through no fault of his own, and flies out of the Cave before his suit is even done rearranging into Superman’s uniform. From there, it’s only the work of a moment to pick his phone up and send a text to Diana:

_Do you think we could push the get-together back until tomorrow?_

He’s expecting to get a text back, and startles when the suit alerts him to a phone call instead.

“Diana?” he asks, slowing down as he picks up. “Is something wrong? Does tomorrow not work for you?”

“Tomorrow is fine,” Diana replies, dismissive. “I’m just concerned about the reasons behind the rain check.”

Kal files the new expression away for later use, holds onto a sigh, and says, “It’s just...I realized something. When I talked to Bruce. And now—there’s just something I need to do, and I can’t—I don’t want to postpone it.”

“Fine,” Diana replies, a thin layer of puzzlement still in her voice. “I’ll let everyone know, then.”

Superman hums into the receiver, glad to have this sorted out, and flies on toward Kansas.

Kal comes down a few minutes later, wincing when he botches the landing and takes a large chunk of gravel out of Martha’s driveway. He’ll have to refill the pothole as soon as he’s done, but right now the problem is simply not important enough to stop him, and after a quick check, he strides into the house, half determined and three-quarters terrified this is going to go terribly wrong. Martha is in the middle of a phone call when he enters the kitchen, washing tomatoes while she arranges the next meeting with her D&D group—she’s tried to take Kal with her a couple of times, but they didn’t have any sort of cover story ready, let alone a name to give people, so after a couple of missed sessions, Kal just insisted he’d survive one night alone per week. So Kal busies himself by getting two mugs out and reheating some coffee in the microwave.

Martha doesn’t realize he’s there until he actually starts the machine, and when she does she takes one look at Kal’s face and says, “Mary-Beth, I’m going to have to call you back, I’ve got a call I don’t want to miss coming in.”

Kal tries to wave her away, signal that he can wait, but in less than a minute Mary-Beth has made her goodbyes and Martha is setting the phone down, taking a seat in front of Kal at the kitchen table, and saying:

“All right, what’s wrong? How did it go with Bruce?”

“It...went,” Kal says with a grimace. “I said what I had to say and he—I knew it was going to be a painful conversation—well, a painful moment—but that. Um. It, uh—it went. Okay. Ish. I think.”

“Oh, Kal,” Martha says in a sympathetic tone, one hand coming up to rest on his wrist, “I’m sure Bruce will come around. I know he’s stubborn, but—”

“Oh, I’m stubborn too,” Kal says with a barely restrained snort. “One of the many things I've learned about myself here. I’m sure we’ll work this out somehow. It’s—that’s not what I came here to talk about.”

Martha straightens in her chair with a little surprised ‘oh’, undoubtedly puzzled by the sudden formality in Kal’s voice, but doesn’t say anything further. She gives Kal an encouraging nod instead, and he takes a deep, bracing breath before he says:

“This is something—I’ve been...coming to this for a while, I think. But it didn’t quite—I hadn’t really put my finger on it until today. See, Bruce and I, we talked about...about family—well, he shouted, but it’s not like I don’t—”

“Kal,” Martha interrupts with a squeeze on his wrist, “big breath, then slow down, please.”

“Oh. Um. Sorry.”

Chuckling at himself, a bit, Kal gives himself time to blink, take another couple of deep breaths, and try again:

“So. Bruce and I talked about family and I—it, uh. Got me thinking. See, I...I haven’t had any contact with my parents since I left Krypton. Haven’t had a proper conversation with them since—wow. Sorry, I, uh—wow.” Wiping at his eyes, Kal manages a chuckle at himself anyway, eyes carefully kept on the tablecloth. “Sorry, I didn’t—it’s touchier than I thought it would be.”

At least, he thinks while Martha quietly passes him a tissue, his voice is still stable for the moment. Mostly stable, at any rate.

“Anyway,” he manages after a while, trying to keep his words...well, understandable, at least, “Kara—my cousin Kara, the one who writes—she’s, uh. I don’t really...have a real relationship to anyone beside her. Back on Krypton, I mean. But then...I had this talk with Bruce, and I—he said I didn’t know what family was, and—”

“He what?” Martha exclaims, shocked enough that her coffee cup almost topples to the ground. Kal catches it, and raises a placating hand:

“No, no, I—it’s fine. He was right, for the—please sit back down. He’s—he wasn’t wrong. But...he wasn’t entirely right, either. Because I realized—as we talked, he and I, I realized that...I’m learning. About family. Thanks to you. What I’m saying is—I consider you family, too.”

Kal chances a glance up when he hears Martha sniffle, and when their eyes meet she makes the kind of choked-off sound Kal has only ever heard from people too profoundly emotional for words. He’s far from done with what he wants to say—hasn’t reached the real crux of the matter, yet—but the sound gives him enough courage to keep looking at Martha as he continues:

“I haven’t—I don’t think I’ve told you this before but...I’m supposed to pick an Earth name. It’s intergalactic law for people who migrate to a planet that hasn’t got proper awareness of the rest of the universe yet. And so—because I consider you like a mother—I was wondering if you’d be willing to, uh...pick it.”

“Clark,” Martha blurts out immediately, the name all but bursting out of her through a sob. “It’s—with Jonathan, before—if we’d conceived a son, we’d have called him Clark.”

Something fierce overtakes him, too strong and too encompassing to be called joy—it rushes through his veins at the speed of light, makes him straighten up and grin and cry at the same time, fills his heart and lungs with warmth and light brighter than the sun. It flows through him like the best, most brilliant tsunami in the history of the universe, makes his palms and armpits tingle with it, and in an instant he’s got Martha gathered in as tight a hug as he can give her without hurting her, sniffing and laughing and sobbing all at once until, finally, he finds just enough breath to say:

“Hi, Ma. I’m Clark.”

“Oh, shoot,” Kal realizes, a few hours later. Or—Clark. He’s still not used to it, still goes giddy with the joy of it, but he’s sure it’ll only grow easier to think of himself that way as time goes by. 

He and Ma—and that transition is so much easier than the other one—have cried their fill and had a celebratory dinner; and through all that, it hadn't even occurred to him, not until just now.

“I need to tell Bruce!”

He’s off so fast, after that, that he actually has to turn back around and give Martha a kiss on the cheek and a promise to do the dishes when he comes back, before he’s off again. Less than a few minutes later, he’s flying over Gotham, almost surprised to find the sun still up over the city, and making his way toward Bruce’s cave.

He finds it occupied, of course. Kal—Clark—might have only brushed shoulders with Bruce Wayne, but nothing in those few minutes, let alone the glimpses he’s caught on TV or in the occasional tabloid, has given him any reason to think Bruce would ever consider Bruce Wayne an acceptable person to be in times of crisis...and it isn’t like Clark hasn’t prompted a significant one. So, all in all, it isn’t much of a surprise to find Bruce hard at work under the hood of the Batmobile—“People keep calling it that—I should get it patented.”—despite the late hour. Or, well, late for regular people; it’s probably barely afternoon for Batman.

Batman, who, for better or for worse, doesn’t react when the main doors open to let Clark in, or when he lands next to the car. Or, in fact, when he clears his throat no less than three times, with increasing volume. Clark waits a bit longer, mindful of the very heavy, very solid piece of metal over Bruce’s very human head, before he reaches down, seizes the underside of the car—

“Don’t even think about it.”

Clark tries to bite down on his grin at the sound, but even he realizes he’s not very successful when he speaks next. There’s something heady about causing Batman to break his resolve, after all, and for all his newfound strength Clark is still, for the most part, just a guy.

“Sorry,” he says, not quite managing to sound as sorry as he should. “It seemed kind of necessary.”

Stony silence, only disturbed by the occasional click of tools—some he recognizes, some he doesn’t—answers him, and Clark reminds himself sternly that it’s his fault Bruce doesn’t want to talk to him right now. He does still have to count in his head a for a bit before he trusts himself to say:

“Look...I’m not here to reopen that conversation.” The silence from under the car becomes, if at all possible, gloomier. “I just...I don’t know if you’re aware—you probably are, being you—but I have to pick a human-sounding alias if I want to stay on Earth. Legally speaking.”

Not even a hum.

Clark closes his eyes, and doesn’t let himself feel frustrated or flustered at the result of his own actions. Instead, he tightens his fingers into fists once, twice, and makes himself say: “In my case I was—I think I’ll probably just change it altogether. My name I mean. On my intergalactic papers.”

Bruce’s...whatever a plank on wheels is supposed to be called. It squeaks, at any rate, when Bruce rolls from under the car and fixes Clark with a Look that is, in all honesty, far less somber than it could be.

“I wanted you to know. First.”

Nothing really...changes, in Bruce’s expression. His eyebrows don’t rise, his mouth doesn’t grow softer or tighter or—he doesn't show any of a dozen possible signs of modified attention or reaction to someone the human body is capable of giving without a word. Still, whether it's Clark’s imagination or something else entirely, it’s like the atmosphere of the Cave changes around him. He wouldn’t know how to quantify it exactly—it seems weightier, that much is sure, but other than that...well, other than that, there’s nothing that seems to matter much but the intense hazel of Bruce’s eyes on him.

It seems, eventually, like one of them is going to break the silence—they both open their mouths to do it, in any case—but they never get the chance.

“Ah, Mister El,” Alfred says from where he’s bringing in what must be Bruce’s evening meal. “What a pleasure it is to see you here—you should have called ahead, I would have had something ready for you.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” Clark says with a polite smile, “I’m quite all right. And, uh...it’s no longer Kal-El, actually.”

Clark turns back toward Bruce for the next part—can’t fight against the overwhelming sense it makes to do so. Bruce—Bruce Wayne, Batman—of all people, knows the importance of a name. He’s known Kal-El, and Shadow, and Kal, and all three of those men have considered him a dear friend. Their dearest friend, in many respects...and it makes sense for him to be the first person to know, after Martha. It makes sense for Clark’s birth, of sorts, to be witnessed by the very man who made it possible in the first place.

“Hi,” he tells Bruce. “I’m Clark Kent.”

It is, perhaps, a little overdramatic to offer his hand in greeting, like they’ve never met before...but then they are both dedicated to parading around in form-fitting costumes to fight crime, so perhaps overdramatics can be a shared language of theirs, if they let it be. And besides, overdramatic or no—corny or no—Bruce does reach out, clasp Clark’s forearm with strong, greasy fingers and say:

“Bruce.”

Clark meets Diana in the Alps, in the sort of landscape that would almost look right at home in El if you could just paint it with a red overlay. The mountains here are shorter, of course: humans don’t have the same tools krytons do when it comes to digging into the earth, let alone setting a second major tectonic event in motion. What the region lacks in height, though, it more than makes up for in palette, and Clark takes a moment to drink in the view before he actually touches down on a wooden deck.

The restaurant, which Diana assures Clark would be much more populated if it were winter, oversees a series of long slopes, one or two with jagged rocks strewn in the middle: rivers of green rushing downwards, the thin blue ribbon of a river cutting through them in the distance. Pushing further, Clark spots many kinds of wildlife, from mammals to insects, and a variety of flowers just as wild and hardy-looking as the vegetation of El was.

“Looks great, right?” Flash—well, no, Barry: he’s in the plaid jacket again—says behind him.

“It does.”

Grinning, Barry motions for Clark to follow him, and they walk across the large deck to a picnic table close to the southern guardrail where John, Victor, Arthur and a man Clark has never met have joined Diana around...hot cocoas, going by the smell. They’re several minutes deep into a heated debate about whether or not certain places count as mountains—the unknown man is arguing, extremely soberly, that Earth can’t even pretend to play in the same category, and the table erupts in protests—Arthur, specifically, yells something about things depending on where you count from—just before Diana abandons her posture of distinguished remove only to say, “Perhaps we could ask Superman to referee. Being the only one of us from outside the solar system should make him an impartial enough observer.”

“Well,” Clark says with a shrug and what he hopes is a suitably apologetic grimace, “I don’t know about the mountains on Mars, but where I’m from, we call that a hill.”

“Don’t let the French hear you say that,” Victor all but snorts. “They’ll get upset.”

“The French get upset too easily, sometimes,” Diana says, but there’s no bite to it, and a moment later she tempers her words further: “But they do know how to cook, so there is that.”

Clark gives a polite nod along with the rest of the table, and peers at the drinks menu with more than a little curiosity. Barry has time to instruct him not to worry about price—“Diana usually pays when we enter her income bracket.”—before Clark settles on another hot cocoa despite the balmy weather, and a dessert consisting entirely of egg whites in custard.

“I imagine Bruce helps, when he comes along,” he half asks the table once the waiter has gone with his order.

He’s not prepared for Arthur’s explosive laughter, or for John to snort into his coffee. The stranger doesn’t smile, but he does tilt his head, just a little, and says, “It seems you have a rather different experience of him than we do.”

“That’s...quite likely, I guess,” Clark says. Can’t expect Batman to treat him the same way as people he’s been colleagues and friends with for years. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where I’ve left my manners, I’m K—I mean. Clark. I’m Clark. Sorry it’s—new. Haven’t done the paperwork yet.”

“Oh, that’s why it sounds so human,” Barry says while John pulls out his phone to make a note of it. “I was wondering if we’d get another J’onn.”

The stranger inclines his head towards Clark again, and a diffuse sense of ‘well met’ greets Clark's thoughts. On autopilot, Clark reaches for the pleasant sense of camaraderie he’s carried as emotional background noise since he set foot on the deck and draws it just a little tighter around his mind, mingled with his own desire to make the acquaintance a pleasant one, and almost doesn’t realize what he’s doing until J’onn’s eyebrows tighten, just a little.

“Sorry,” Clark says, causing eyebrows to draw up around them, “force of habit.”

“What’s force of habit?” John asks. Diana squints:

“Cutting J'onn out of his thoughts, I’d assume.”

“Sounds fishy,” Arthur remarks, and Clark decides that’s his cue to explain before someone—oddly enough, his bet would go to Victor rather than Barry—decides to pick up on the humor of that word in Aquaman’s mouth:

“I used to—uh. Operate outside the law, back on Krypton,” Clark explains. “My family didn’t receive off-planet guests all that often, but I encountered enough of them—and enough of them were—what’s the word for that?”

“Telepathic,” John supplies.

“Right. Enough of them were telepathic that concealing what I was thinking about became a reflex.”

_Not,_ Clark confesses in the semi-privacy of his head, _that I particularly intend to lose it. I highly doubt you’re the last telepath I'll encounter, and they can’t all have good intentions._

_That does sound quite reasonable,_ J'onn answers. _And if anything, you feel far less defensive about it than most of the others did._

No explicit thought or image passes between them, but for a short second a distinct Batness hovers in their connection, and Clark doesn’t really feel like struggling against the grin blooming on his face.

“Great,” Arthur sighs, sounding exceedingly—but not falsely—put upon. “I guess we’re going to have to get used to you talking over our heads, then.”

“Not at all!” Clark promises. “At least, it’s not my intention. I mean...it would be rude, for a start.”

“Yeah, not even Batman tries to do that,” John remarks as he stirs the remnants of his cocoa. “And besides, you’re assuming that J'onn would be okay with that kind of behavior, which is rude.”

“Aquaman doesn’t know me as well as you do,” J'onn points out, but John snorts and shakes his head.

“We’ve worked with you enough for him to realize that. Just because B—Bruce is being a stick in the mud about having new people join in—”

“Oh, don’t be a hypocrite,” Arthur says—Barry and Victor erupt into an eerily synchronized groan, and Clark hears Diana’s discreet sigh as easily as a tempest. “You haven’t exactly been fighting him about any of it.”

“Must we really have this conversation again?” Diana asks, mostly rhetorically, before she turns a vaguely fond but still exasperated expression in Clark’s direction. “They’re always bickering about which one of them comes the closest to being able to go toe-to-toe with Batman.”

“It’s not about that!” Arthur and John protest with identical looks of horror.

“Isn’t it?” J'onn asks, making Barry laugh at his quiet disbelief.

“It absolutely is about that, and I don’t know if you guys noticed yet, but Clark has got you beat by—what’s the Earth’s circumference again?”

“Just over forty thousand kilometers,” Victor deadpans.

“Yeah, that, at least.”

Blushing, Clark drops his gaze to his hands on the naked wood tabletop, cocoa still steaming in the half-full cup. The others are watching him, he knows. There’s a special kind of silence that happens when people who’d gotten quite comfortable forgetting—or ignoring—that you were there are forcibly reminded of your existence. Reactions after that vary, though not a lot around Ka—Clark—but the silence? That’s always the same.

This one doesn’t last long, however, thank Rao, because Diana lets it live for all of five seconds before she says in a vaguely wondering voice, “That was a surprise indeed.”

“I don’t know what came over me,” Clark mumbles, the tips of his ears heating up even more than they already have. “I’m not—I’m usually better at listening—”

“Oh, people listening to Bats isn’t the problem.”

Arthur pauses when the waiter comes back to clear their table and ask if they’d like something else—sodas and another hot cocoa are ordered—but as soon as the coast is clear it’s John who picks up the thread.

“Bruce is very good at making people listen when he puts his mind to it—”

“Because we’re terrified of him.”

“You’re terrified,” Victor says, bumping Barry with his shoulder hard enough to make him waver in his seat. “Some of us just don’t care enough to really fight him.”

“Let’s call it that,” J'onn murmurs.

Clark is fairly sure Diana heard him, though her poker face is too good for him to pierce it, and he’s left with the strong but unprovable feeling she’s currently doing a great deal of internal eye-rolling at everybody else’s expanse.

“The point I’m trying to make,” Barry insists as he rights himself, “is that even Diana’s never gotten that kind of reaction out of him, and she’s notoriously unafraid of basically everything. Even Bats.”

“Oh, well,” Clark says, forcing his shoulders into a small, dismissive shrug, “I must have caught him on a bad day.”

“He doesn’t have bad days,” the table replies with frightening unity.

“Officially,” Diana concludes. “We’re all well aware he’s only human—though he is quite skilled at making people forget it—but he is, without a doubt, the most stubborn person I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I’ve been in this world for over a hundred and fifty years.”

“So, what’s your secret?” Barry asks, and while more than one other person around the table chastises him, even J'onn gives the impression of paying closer attention.

Clark, keenly aware of their gazes on him, slouches under the pressure and focuses on keeping his fingers still, his hands flat on the table. What kind of question is that, anyway? ‘What’s your secret?’ Ha. As if Clark had somehow tamed a beast, when all he’s done is stumble into the path of a brilliant man who ended up leading him—quite by accident—to his salvation. There’s no secret there, nothing but nearly three decades of misery and then the most extraordinary stroke of good luck the universe has ever witnessed.

It isn’t—Clark has a life outside Batman, now. He meant what he said, about being Superman with or without Bruce’s blessing. He’s got Martha, and Alfred, and Earth-appropriate papers coming right up—might even get to tie himself legally to Martha as a cousin or some other kind of distant relative, if he’s lucky. Eventually, he’ll be able to actually go out, make friends. Oh, he’s...he might never turn out to be the kind of outgoing person Bruce Wayne is, but Clark is already miles and miles away from who Kal was, just by existing, and that’s only going to get better as time goes by. So yes, he does have a life outside of Batman—has not actually depended on the man for a while now—and it’s a pretty good life, so far. But he’s also not naive enough to think he owes that existence to his own effort.

“Well, whatever it is,” Arthur chimes in before Clark has time to figure out how to deflect the question, “I would love to be able to annoy the guy half as much as you do—that was magnificent!”

“It really wasn’t.”

Arthur doesn’t blink at him, or even show any outward sign of pausing, for that matter; but he doesn’t interrupt when Clark continues either.

“Just because things got...loud...that doesn’t mean he didn’t make good points.”

“Oh, come on!” Barry protests, Victor’s mouth twisting wryly in the background. “He acted like you were a regular human who ran into a burning building with nothing but a t-shirt and boxers on! That’s ridiculous!”

“And the lot of you acted like the very purpose of his existence was to annoy you,” Clark retorts before he can even think of stopping the words.

Silence shrouds the table, Diana carefully sipping her cocoa on his right—though Clark can tell her eyes aren’t leaving his face—and the atmosphere is more than a little awkward, especially for a second meeting. Still, as he’s heard Alfred say: in for a penny, in for a pound. So he refuses to allow himself to hesitate, sinking into the comforting certitude of Superman to keep himself going.

“Experience matters—being careful matters, if not for our own sakes then for the sake of the civilians we could fail to help or outright harm if we’re not serious enough about what we’re doing. The goal of an organization like the Justice League is to help everyone, isn’t it? Gather as many helpers as can be found to help as many people as can be reached. Isn’t that right?”

“It is,” Diana says, setting her cocoa cup back down on the table.

She doesn’t share the others’ look of contrition, but a glance at her confirms her expression has gone from surprised to speculative—Clark would falter at the sight, but Superman meets it head on, determined to get to the bottom of this, even if it hurts his relationship with the Justice League. It will, in the long run, bring more good than bad anyway, he’s sure.

“Well, there you have it, then. You don’t build something like that without discipline, and dedication—and paperwork. We are all adults here; we are all capable of recognizing that. So I may disagree—strongly disagree—with Bruce about a number of things, but I’ll still be taking him seriously, because he did make good points, and if I’m not going to listen to them, then what even is the point of being part of a team with him?”

Breathing in deep, Superman closes his eyes and forces his hands to unwind, his heartbeat to slow down. Superman is not supposed to get angry, not supposed to yell at teammates—or, if he’s going to be realistic, at anyone. A man who can destroy a tractor without even noticing could easily kill a person he’s annoyed with, no matter his intention, and while people may forget he has this ability as long as he keeps his temper under control, he has absolutely no doubt a little bit of shouting would do wonders to jog their memories.

Fortunately, once he does convince himself to look at his—possibly, one day, if he’s lucky—future teammates, they don’t look scared. Arthur, Barry, and Victor have sunk down in their seats, a little, and John seems very absorbed by his fingertips. J'onn’s face is impossible to decipher, and not just because he manages to make it feel totally blank despite having specifically chosen features for himself. Overall, this is a better reaction than Clark was anticipating, and he turns to Diana with a cautiously optimistic smile...only to find her looking at him with a disturbingly cryptical grin, something sparkling in her eyes as she says, “So, that’s your secret.”

“What? What’s his secret?”

“He likes Bruce.”

“Well, yes,” Clark says, Arthur’s smug grin making heat rise on the back of his neck, “of course I like him. He’s my friend.”

“Batman doesn’t usually do friends,” Victor remarks with a wry twist of his lips, “but I guess there’s a first time for everything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go back. Dinner with the old man.”

Clark watches Victor get to his feet, mutters of encouragement and good wishes for the evening rising from the table, and waves goodbye just before he takes off, without even considering the nearby cable cars. Barry yawns, then, glancing toward the sun where it is already dipping down towards the mountains, and says:

“You know, I’d love to stay longer—I still have like, three million questions—but I’ve got a thing tonight and I think I’d like to nap a little before it's time for that. Also, laundry.”

“Anything we can help with?” Diana asks, but Barry shakes his head.

“Thanks, but it’s not really Flash-related. Haven’t forgotten about your analyses, though—they’re still processing. Should have the results for you tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Barry.”

Barry nods, makes his way off the deck, and, once he’s out of view from the inside of the restaurant, takes off at a run, the blur of him zipping through evergreens until Clark can’t see it anymore—not without a better idea of where he’s going. Then Arthur gets up too, making some noise about going home as well since everyone’s leaving, and pretending to be terribly inconvenienced when John offers to drop him on the coastline on his way back. Soon enough, it’s only Clark, J'onn, and Diana left to pay the bill and tell the waitstaff their friends decided to hike back down the mountain.

“For my part,” Diana tells them afterwards, “I was thinking of hurrying up to the top and catching the sunset there. There’s a great view of Mont Blanc and Geneva below, if you like that sort of thing.”

Clark does and, apparently, so does J'onn: less than a few minutes later, they’re up the mountain and looking down at the whole valley of Geneva. The city sprawls along a wide lake, lights on against the early night of mountain villages everywhere: it looks like a piece of night sky itself, from up there. Clark refuses to look closer, just so he doesn’t have to shatter the illusion. Higher up, Mont Blanc and its surrounding peaks are aflame with the sunset, wide streaks of light slashing across the darkening sky, and Clark absorbs it all—imagines he can see actual red in there, hear a m’ro moo in the distance. He’s growing used to the nostalgia, little by little. Has mostly managed the trick of not letting it cut him down, of acknowledging it and moving on...But even like this—even with training, and a growing number of sunsets and sunrises there to help...there may never cease to be a part of his heart, the part that will never forget having been Kal, that looks at all this beauty and misses another kind of wilderness all the more strongly because he never felt able to enjoy it while he could.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, well aware of the twist to his lips.

“It is indeed.”

J'onn’s voice sounds different, then, and when Clark turn he’s almost not surprised to find a green-skinned man in place of the neutral, purposefully forgettable features from earlier. He has no eyebrows, or any sort of hair Clark can see; and J'onn’s outfit doesn’t keep much from view. But his eyes glow with the same red as Krypton’s sun, and the color is enough to take Clark in completely. J'onn doesn’t quite smile—whether that’s a personal quirk or a Martian thing, Clark wouldn’t know—but he does say:

“The colors are very reminiscent of my home planet...though they are perhaps somewhat less orange here than they are there.”

“The sun was always golden on Themyscira,” Diana offers, a hint of sadness tinging her smile. “A divine gift, I assume. Greece is—the sunsets there come close, but they’re not the same. Nothing ever is.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.”

“You mustn’t be too hard on the others,” J'onn says after a long silence, when all that remains of the light is a thin lining of orange over the snowy mountains. “They’re young, and impulsive.”

“They’re too set in their ways for them to get used to being part of the League quickly,” Diana says. “Especially Arthur.”

“Well, he’ll have to learn, won’t he?” Clark asks. “All of us will, if we’re serious about keeping the League afloat, and I am. Even if I’m not—this could change things. Really change things. But—”

“But there’s too much room for error if we’re allowed to run around on a whim,” Diana concludes. “And error with people like us would be...well. I imagine you’ve had more than enough time with Bruce to expose all the ways in which a rogue group of super-powered people could do far more harm than good.”

Clark didn’t have to wait for Batman’s arrival in his life to realize that unfettered power could be a dangerous thing. Krypton was more than enough of a master class in that; and hearing your aunt fall to hear death in the dead of night—dismissing it as a bad dream and not realizing that was what it was until entire months have gone by—has a way of driving a lesson home. Now is not the time for that conversation, however, and so Clark nods, holding a sigh in. The Justice League is a good idea, he’s convinced of that. But it will only be a good _thing_ if everyone involved, including him—even if he doesn’t ever get to actually join—is willing to put effort towards that goal. Even if said effort results in paperwork.

“Don’t worry,” J'onn tells them when the lull in conversation becomes noticeable. “I’m confident we will all rise to the occasion...It doesn’t seem like any of us is the type to leave their home unprotected.”

“Home,” Clark murmurs. “I suppose that’s what it’ll be, eventually.”

It isn’t, just yet. He likes his life here, has no intention of leaving in the foreseeable future, but home? Home is still a place far off among the stars, with mountains so high they might as well be touching the sky, and a sun so red it changes all the colors of its world. Home is, still, a place too vast to name, where he was small and scared and all but invisible...and yet it is a place he misses still, part of him longing to go back, to see his parents again, to—but those are useless dreams, and Clark shuts them down with a deep, shaky inhale.

“It’s not so bad, you know, once you grow used to it. Plenty of this to experience, and the neighbors are fairly decent.”

“Oh, I know. So is my housemate, actually,” Clark tells Diana, unable not to mirror her smile, even if he tried. “Speaking of her...it’s my turn cooking tonight. I think I’d better get going.”

“Of course,” J'onn says with a solemn nod. “As for the future—I realize we share neither a culture, nor a membership in the League, but I know something of what it is to be an alien. So does Diana—”

“In a manner of speaking,” Diana interjects with a little smile, “but as J'onn was about to say—we’re here if you’d like to talk. Or drink.”

“Diana is very fond of wine.”

“And whiskey. And vodka. And I rarely say no to a good rum.”

Clark laughs at the way Diana winks, the faint sense of fondness floating around J'onn. He didn’t get to talk with the League as much as he wanted today, but they were good conversation, and so he’s still smiling when he floats upwards—Diana congratulates him on his progress with a teasing tone—turns towards Kansas, and heads for Smallville.

Clark comes back to Smallville just in time to put himself between Martha and the stove and bicker with her about not letting him skip out on chores, while she insists she won’t just sit around being hungry when she can just fix dinner and let him take care of something else later on. Which is fair and perfectly logical, but Clark makes sure to keep being contrary, just so he can see Martha’s grin widen as the conversation goes on. Later that evening, after Clark is done doing the dishes, Martha sits him down in front of the TV and announces it’s time to keep furthering his pop culture education.

“You have a choice: we can stick with _Star Trek_ and watch the animated series, or we can go for something a little different and have ourselves a _Star Wars_ marathon.”

Clark looks at the cover, and raises an eyebrow.

“It’s still set in space.”

“There was a fad, and I’m a nerd, sue me,” Martha replies. “We _could_ skip ahead and watch Buffy or the X-Files, but you said you wanted to maybe take a break from long shows, so….”

“Let’s go with _Star Wars_ , then.”

“Great. Could you get the lights?”

It would be a lie, so far, to say that Clark has been as enthusiastic as Martha is about the shows and movies she’s shown him. He doesn’t dislike them, far from that, but he has to admit that a good part of the fun in these is watching Martha mouth lines as they are said on screen, and listening to her impart a veritable encyclopedia's worth of obscure knowledge about fictional characters, the fictional universes they live in, and the people who dedicate an astonishing number of hours to loving those things. It isn’t the only part of pop culture he's discovered, of course: he enjoyed Clue immensely, especially the bit with doing the voices—“Oh, I’m definitely introducing you to my D&D group.”—raged at Chutes and Ladders, and got his butt properly handed to him in no time flat the one time Martha had him playing Risk. The shows and movies are definitely Martha’s favorite part, though, and watching her enjoy them is a delight in and of itself...Clark can’t wait to see what it’s like when she’s let loose in the middle of like-minded people.

Of course, they’ll have to wait until his new papers come through before they can think of actually letting anyone meet Clark. But it’s nice to make plans for the future, even if they’re frivolous ones about watching movies with new people. It’s the small things that keep you going, after all, like hoping Luke Skywalker will finally get some closure from the man who killed his father—

A sound prickles at the edge of Clark's hearing.

“I think Bruce is coming.”

“What?” Martha exclaims, looking between the front door and the screen, where Obi-Wan Kenobi is searching for Darth Vader in the Death Star. “Right now?”

“He’s in the plane,” Clark replies, getting up from the couch and trying to make sure he hasn’t left anything embarrassing lying around. “Shouldn’t be more than five minutes, I think.”

He’s not entirely sure why this urge to neaten up has even seized him. Rationally speaking, he could stay on the couch with Martha and keep watching; but the thought of Bruce looking at the place and thinking Clark is responsible for any sort of mess is far too distressing to be ignored, and so he doesn’t try to stop Martha when she pauses the DVD in the player and goes to put the kettle on.

Four minutes later, at the most, Bruce Wayne knocks on the front door.

It’s Clark who answers, far more flushed than he needs to be, and what is even going on with—

“Oh, hi, Bruce.”

“Hi. I, uh—I was wondering if we could. Talk. For a bit.”

“Uh,” Clark says, intelligently, looking at the TV first and Martha second—she looks more than a little perplexed, though whether by Bruce’s presence or Clark’s behavior, it’s difficult to say. But she gives a little shrug anyway, so Clark concludes: “Yes, sure. Let me just—”

Clark gestures down at his socked feet, and then almost topples when he bends to put shoes on, which would be embarrassing under any circumstances; here, now, combined with the way neither Bruce not Martha are saying anything while they wait, it has the potential to become thoroughly mortifying. Still, eventually Clark manages, and then he’s vaguely waving in Martha’s direction and stepping out through the front door and into the balmy air of an early August evening. He follows Bruce away from the house, toward the fields, and when the silence between them becomes too tense to bear, he makes himself blurt:

“I’ve got a room now. Of my own. I mean, it’s, uh—it’s above the storehouse. If you’d like to...I don’t know. Sit down or something.”

“Certainly,” Bruce says in Ellon, more formal than they’ve ever been with each other—then he winces, almost too quick for even Clark to see, and chooses much more casual, downright friendly grammar to add: “Lead the way.”

Nodding, Clark does as he’s told, and they finish the walk to the storehouse and up the ladder in silence, until Clark is sitting on the faded couch and Bruce is looking around like he’s trying to appraise the place. Tension grows between them again, threatening to push Clark into another bout of insanity, when Bruce apparently decides it’s his turn to try and produce some semblance of conversation, in English this time:

“I like it, Clark. It’s very midwest. Very you.”

“Thank you...I guess.”

Bruce nods, short and decisive, and then his shoulders straighten, and his hand lets go of the hem of his blazer. When he looks back at Clark next, there is no hesitation at all in his posture. Clark adjusts in response, slips into Superman’s demeanor without even having to think about it, and remains entirely neutral when Batman says:

“The League has voted in favor of accepting your offer of an off-planet base. They sent their responses along tonight, as well as a number of suggestions, questions and requests regarding the actual process of installation...John has volunteered to ask around for transportation devices—he mentioned something called Zeta beams?”

“That makes sense,” Superman replies with a slight nod. “They’re limited in range, but they’re cheaper and easier to maintain than other systems. Probably the best choice for a test run, and they’ll be safer for any civilian who may come in contact with them, too.”

“That’s settled, then. I’ll put the team’s feedback together and send you a summary so you can prepare your answers before we have another meeting.”

“A meeting?” Superman asks, puzzled. “I thought you didn’t want me joining the League?”

There’s a brief pause, Batman’s lips pinching together as he gives Superman a flinty look, but Superman doesn’t move from his place on the couch, afraid a single shiver of his muscles will bring whatever bridge they’re trying to build crumbling into dust between their fingers.

Eventually, Batman says, “The League will have no choice but to work with you on this. It makes more sense to sit us all around a table than to have me keep acting as a go-between.”

“Of course,” Superman agrees, finally getting to his feet so he can extend a hand for Batman to shake. “Well, I’ll be there. I’m looking forward to working with the lot of you.”

“The League could say the same,” Batman answers, stiffer than ever despite the steadiness of his gaze, the confidence present in every nuance of movement in his hand. Then, as if taking a plunge he adds: “Wonder Woman informed me I have you to thank for everyone’s speedy responses. I don’t know what you did, but I’ve never had Arthur take less than four business days to answer an email from me, so...thanks for that, Superman.”

“You’re...welcome.”

Batman nods again, either oblivious to or unconcerned by Superman’s slack jaw, and turns around to leave with such a flourish that it almost feels like he’s swung a cape over his shoulders. Deflating, Clark sits back down on Martha’s old couch, feeling vaguely disappointed with the proceedings. Sure, it makes sense for Batman to let him know about that sort of development, and if Clark had been opposed to working with him, he wouldn’t have offered his ship as the League’s headquarters, let alone fight fought to be considered an acceptable candidate to join. Still, he’d have hoped—that is to say, with how their last conversations have gone, he’d have thought—oh, but it probably doesn’t matter.

And then, a second later, it definitely doesn’t matter because when Clark tries to figure out where Bruce’s plane is, he realizes not only has the thing not moved, but there’s also a distinct crunch of graveled earth under expensive shoes. Well, he can’t _really_ hear the expensive part, but it’s Bruce. Everything he wears is expensive. It’s also deeply, deeply irrelevant right now, at least compared to the question of why on Earth he hasn’t left yet. Frowning, Clark floats down from the loft, landing behind Bruce without a sound—and grinning when Bruce grunts but doesn’t seem startled at all.

“Is everything all right?”

“No,” Bruce retorts, almost a bark. Then, switching to Ellon after a long silence: “About—when you came to the Cave and— _fuck_.”

A deep breath as Bruce turns his back to Clark.

“His name was _Jason_ ,” he tells the sky, which is almost entirely pink with sunset. His son’s name sounds odd, next to Ellon words, but Clark has had more than enough time to realize some things in his life are easier to speak of in English, and he doesn’t begrudge Bruce the reverse. “I—I was not there. That—that— _bastard_ took him, and t—”

Bruce cuts himself off with such force, Clark is almost afraid he’ll chip his teeth. He takes a tentative step forward, hand reaching out to touch, but stops himself at the last second. Who knows, after all, if touching Bruce right now would be at all helpful? Clark waits instead, tries to leave space for Bruce’s harsh breathing, for the sort of feeling that blocks the throat and traps the words inside. For the sort of sound that feels like if it starts, it’ll never stop again.

“I was not there,” Bruce repeats, deflating, hunching under the weight of it all. “My boy died, alone, because I was not there. Because I took a vow—because Batman exists to save people, to help them, but I—whatever exists between Batman and Bruce Wayne, it’s never brought anyone anything but pain. And that is the thing that trained you.”

This time Clark does reach up—touches the fingers of his right hand to the back of Bruce’s left elbow, and, with as much care as he can manage, positions himself just a little closer to Bruce: just close enough that he won’t have to speak above a whisper for Bruce to hear what he’s got to say. He clears his throat, fearing for a moment that the words really will stay stuck inside—or will cut through his throat like razors and leave him to bleed out here in the grass, in the first place where he’s ever felt like he could fit in.

“You know,” he says, with his hand still on Bruce’s elbow and his eyes firmly stuck to the ground, “I used to hate it. The—the thing in the middle. It just—it never managed to really be Kal, it was never strong enough to be Shadow...I thought...I thought it was—thought it would be better for everyone if it just...stopped existing. Disappeared, and left Shadow free to complete his mission. To be—well. Essentially: Batman.”

Clark forces a chuckle, and it scrapes at the inside of his chest, at his throat, until he almost decides to switch back to English and the—not quite the ease of it, but something like it, at least. He’s the one who forced this conversation on Bruce, though, without pausing to think about the circumstances in which he’d have preferred to have it—if at all—let alone the language. The least he can do is let Bruce decide what words to use for the rest of it.

“I don’t—I can’t express how much I hated it. I thought—it felt like it could never—be. Like I had to be something else, always, or I’d just be some sort of terrible—”

“You’re not—” Bruce starts in English, twisting around to look at Clark’s face. “There’s nothing hateable about you. You—”

“It’s okay,” Clark cuts in, sticking to Ellon even if Bruce won’t.

He’s still not sure he’ll manage to say what he needs to say properly with this specific language, but now that he’s started it seems...important, somehow, to say all of it in his mother tongue. Especially when he realizes, as he says it, that it really is okay—or, at least, far more okay than it’s ever been before.

“It wasn't, for a long time. I certainly wasn’t okay when I tried to become a second Batman. But then—then we came here. To Earth, I mean. And then—then I met you. Not Batman. Not Bruce Wayne. Just you. The guy in the middle.”

Clark smiles, just a little, when Bruce’s mouth all but falls open, color leaching from his face.

“You were the first person who saw me. Batman saw Kal, and then he saw Shadow, but it’s you who—you were the one who helped me when I had no option but to learn to be myself. You helped me learn what I needed to know, and then you introduced me to Martha and—look,” Clark adds, when Bruce’s face goes entirely white and his eyes widen in something far too close to horror for comfort, “I’m not saying—you didn’t turn me into Clark. Of course not. But you—you made it possible for me to...I don’t know. To become him. Become me. And I’m not—it doesn’t...erase anything, or cancel anything out. I know that. I’m not expecting it to. I’m just saying—it’s not pain. What you, Bruce, brought me. It isn’t pain, or anger, or sadness, or—it’s quite the opposite, in fact. Like...a sheltering rock in a storm. Maybe I’d have survived without you, but, Rao, I’m glad I found you.”

“You say that now,” Bruce mutters, blood rushing back into his cheeks, his neck, his ears.

Clark watches Bruce’s skin change color and wants to hug him, press him close until all the affection he feels, all the love and friendship and hope he’s found here, on Earth, flood from his chest into the man who made all of it possible. He wants to gather Bruce to him and keep him there until he realizes exactly how much he’s done. It wouldn’t erase the pain in Bruce's past—nothing would, Clark knows—but maybe, just maybe, it would help soothe it a little, and that would be worth it.

Clark ignores the urge, however—doesn’t listen to the part of him that wants to kiss Bruce’s forehead; as if it could solve anything—and reaches for Bruce’s elbow again instead, giving it a friendly squeeze. He settles for smiling down at Bruce in as sincere and reassuring a way as he can manage, leaning into him for comfort—his or Bruce’s, he’s not sure—until they both realize how close they’re standing and step apart at the same time, breathing like they’ve been underwater all this time.

“Thank you,” Bruce says in strained English, still flushed but more...stable, now, than he was when he first arrived. “That was—thanks. For...sharing.” Bruce clears his throat. “I should go back to Gotham. I’ve got things to do.”

“Yes, of course,” Clark replies, his whole skin buzzing with a sort of electricity he doesn’t remember ever feeling before. “Well, goodnight, then. Let me know when you’ve got a date for the meeting.”

“Will do,” Bruce replies, more softly than the words really require. Then, almost hesitant: “I’m going to need my arm back.”

Clark lets go with a sheepish chuckle, face blooming with summer sun-heat, and watches Bruce walk back toward the front yard, bypass the house entirely, and climb into the plane, taking off in the general direction of Gotham. Clark watches him go far longer than a human could—has to force himself to stop, after a while—and then he spends longer still just standing there next to the grazing field and grinning at the stars.

Martha has situated herself back on the couch when Clark comes inside, nibbling on popcorn with her giant book of crosswords, the screen still frozen on Ben Kenobi’s quest for Darth Vader. She waves Clark’s apologies away as he sits down, making room for the bowl of popcorn between them and grabbing the remote before she asks, “What did Bruce want, anyway? It must have been important, for him to come all the way here.”

“Oh, the League’s decided to use my ship as headquarters. He was just here to let me know.”

“He made a four-hour flight just so he could tell you something that would have fit into a text?”

Caught by surprise, Clark almost doesn’t catch the popcorn bowl in time to prevent a fatal fall to the ground. When he looks up from his near-blunder, Martha is still staring at him with a raised eyebrow. Clark flushes again, not quite as pleasantly as before—though not in a painful way, either—and manages a shrug that he hopes is convincing. Somehow, he hadn’t thought of that, and now the very knowledge is throwing a wrench in his thought process, making his mind sputter and...well, not die, but definitely not work as it should.

“I mean,” he manages after a while, “there was...something else we needed to talk about it’s just—that wasn’t the only thing, is all.”

“Yes,” Martha says like she thinks Clark hit his head somehow, “but he still flew for four hours—eight, with the trip back—just to have a, what, thirty-minute chat with you in the barn?”

“I think I should get a job,” Clark blurts out.

As diversions go, this one is absolutely disastrous—he doesn’t need to see Martha’s face go a stony sort of blank to realize that. She’s a kind woman, however, and so she pretends not to notice the fumbling—or the way Clark’s fingers are millimeters away from denting the metal bowl they’ve used for the popcorn. For a few seconds, silence floats between them while Clark tries to figure out where to go from there...but then, as it turns out, he must have been thinking about this a little, because his mouth starts working as if on its own:

“I can’t just rely on your generosity forever. And it’s not that I don’t like living on the farm, it’s just—I don’t think I want Superman to be the only one who helps, you know? Super strength can do a lot of things, but it won’t solve everything.”

“So...are you thinking about going into politics?” Martha asks, filching a fistful of popcorn even as she turns to face Clark more completely. “Because that might mean more scrutiny than you’re ready for.”

“Oh, no! No, my cousin is a politician, I’ve seen what that can be like—no, I don’t think leadership is the thing for me.” Clark shudders. “I do want to help, just...not that way.”

Martha hums, and makes a bunch of other suggestions—working for a non-profit, being a teacher, a social worker, a foster parent...none of these options really catch Clark’s interest, but the conversation does last long enough to prevent another go at discussing Bruce’s reason for flying all the way to Kansas, which Clark counts as a win.

He’s not sure he feels ready to share the delightful strangeness of the warmth in his stomach with anyone—not sure what to do but savor it, grinning at the ceiling of his loft until he falls asleep with a smile on his lips and a contented hum on his tongue.

Clark flies into Detroit later that week so he can meet with John and start filling out his paperwork. There’s a lot of it, predictably, and in a language Clark never learned, which makes the whole process even longer than it would normally be.

“I realize it’s stupid,” John says when they set aside the paperwork in favor of a coffee over his extremely shiny kitchen table, “but J'onn is the only other alien—well, non-Terran—I’ve met, and since he was able to read it without a problem, I kind of assumed—”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll learn it,” Clark reassures him cheerfully, almost surprised by his own persistent good mood. “I can recognize a couple of words already.”

John’s eyebrows rise high on his forehead, but Clark just smiles and keeps filling out his application for a Corps-territory passport, since his Kryptonian one has been revoked. (It hurt, somehow, to read about it in Kara’s latest letter. It isn’t like he hadn’t expected it, but it caught him by surprise anyway.) The good part is, once that’s done, the Green Lanterns will be the ones to take care of inserting Clark Kent into American databases—which is a blessing, because Clark doesn’t have the slightest idea how he’d manage that.

“We just do the legal bits, though,” John warns when Clark shares his thoughts. “If you want to convince people you’ve always lived...wherever you want to settle down...you’re going to have to ask for J'onn’s help.”

“I haven’t decided where to go yet,” Clark replies with a shrug, refusing a third cupcake with a polite smile. “I’m not even sure what I’ll do with myself—I don’t know how to do any Earth job. Well, aside from some farming, but that’s not a career path I’m interested in.”

Oh, he’ll do it, if he has to. If Martha needs the help, or if he can’t find another job, but...well. Part of it is that he genuinely does want to help more than one person, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to do that as a farmer. Another part—more selfish, more shameful—is that after a lifetime of only barely ever leaving his house for anything but crime-fighting, he has no desire to settle down in another place where he’d see the same hundred faces for the rest of his life.

“Well, what do you want to do then?” John asks. “Me, I’m an architect—I like it, but it’s not for everyone.”

“I want to help,” Clark replies, aware of the petulant note in his voice but strangely incapable of keeping it out. “I want to—Krypton’s government is quite...corrupt. On multiple levels. I’m used to helping people, smuggling information pamphlets out, and getting them off the planet when they become compromised...I think I’d like to do something like that. Not the smuggling-people-out part, necessarily but...making sure the public has access to information, even if it means annoying a few people in the process. It’s not like I can’t take it, after all.”

John looks at him for a long time, every line of his face speaking of someone focused on an idea—though what idea, Clark doesn’t really know. He sits there, trying not to fidget too much, until John, as deep in thought as he was before, asks:

“Have you ever heard the term ‘muckraker’?”

“Can’t say I have, no.”

John grins, and ends up sending Clark away with a lot of reading recommendations, the names of three different universities in various cities, and a promise that he’ll be welcome to stay with John if he ever needs to spend time in Detroit again.

Not exactly the afternoon Clark had anticipated, but not exactly a bad one, either.

On Saturday, five days after Bruce’s strange visit to the farm—and the loft, where his smell lingered the first night, caught in a closed space while Clark, for some reason, never quite got around to opening the back doors—Clark receives a text from him that only says ‘clark.kent@dmail.com’, followed by a string random numbers and letters, which, Clark reasons, must be a password. It takes a few minutes before he manages to access the mailbox, but once he does he’s not that surprised to find a single, tersely-worded message with a fifty-seven-page PDF attached.

He’s in the house’s living room, with the brand new couch all to himself while Martha is out in town for her weekly book club. He takes the time to sip from his coffee before he scrolls past the main title—“Project Watchtower”— takes a look at the table of contents, and promptly chokes on his coffee, laughter stinging at the corners of his eyes until he has to set his suit-made tablet aside and double over with it. It takes him a while, but eventually Clark does get himself back under control...just enough, at any rate, to send a quick text to Bruce’s number:

_‘How much did part three hurt to write?’_

_‘My teeth may never recover,’_ comes the near-immediate response.

Clark snorts again, scrolling down the file past ‘I. Technical Concerns’ and ‘II. Political Concerns’ to go straight to ‘III. Personal Concerns’ which he’s absolutely certain will turn out to mean ‘questions Batman deemed unprofessional but felt compelled to include anyway’. And, indeed, the first item on the explicitly unordered list doesn't do much to change his mind about that.

_‘You can tell Barry replicators are not a real thing,’_ he texts Bruce.

_‘Not unless I want him to come up with another ridiculous science-fiction related questions. How do you even know what a replicator is?’_

_‘Martha describes herself as a veteran nerd.’_

Clark chuckles to himself as Bruce’s side of the conversation turns into a ‘currently writing’ bubble, sipping on his coffee again while he gives the following questions a cursory look, dictating answers where he can and marking things to look up in other places. He’s on the cusp of sinking into complete focus—and moving back up to the more serious questions—when his phone vibrates with a new alert.

_‘I still didn’t expect her to teach you about that first.’_

_‘If I recall correctly, she said I might as well turn to Wikipedia and scientific journals for ‘the high brow topics’ and let her take care of my cultural and hands-on education. What’s a TARDIS?’_

_‘Let me guess,’_ Bruce replies, again without pause, _‘Barry?’_

With a snort, Clark shuffles around on the couch until he’s no longer sitting but rather sprawled on his back, tablet resting on his belly and propped up against his bent leg. It feels a little bit like surrendering to some form of temptation—like waking from a luxurious nap and sinking back into bed with a beloved book in your hands—and his smile widens, warmth bubbling in his stomach with the delightful fizz of a soda bottle. He smiles down at his tablet as he types an answer, still technically working even though he’s looking for ways to appall Bruce more than he is actually trying to answer questions.

_‘Arthur, actually. Should I be surprised? I have no idea what this is referencing.’_

_‘An alien,’_ is Bruce’s instant reply. It makes Clark frown despite himself.

_‘Far be it from me to complain,’_ he writes, _‘but I don’t think you’ve ever replied to my messages this quickly. Is there a special occasion?’_

He doesn't send it. He stares down at the tablet for a long time instead, the texting app that wouldn’t exist on a human-made item blinking at him in bright, textured colors, and hesitates. He’s not sure why he hesitates, exactly. It’s an innocent enough message—one he’d have no problem sending Kara, for example. But here, and now, he can’t help but think maybe he should try to sound less—less. Less something, surely, though he can’t quite put his finger on what or why. It’s enough to keep his fingers away from the ‘send’ button, at any rate, and he stares at the screen for a moment longer, hoping against hope that Bruce will send something else and spare him from having to make an actual decision.

He does want the conversation to keep going—has never had any objection to talking to Bruce in any capacity, or at any length—but, perhaps, not quite that way. Still, Bruce doesn’t seem in the mood to say more. So after a while, Clark erases the unsent message. And despite—or perhaps, a tiny voice whispers at the back of his mind, because of—his vague awareness of the implications, he decides to ask:

_‘What are you doing?’_

The next alert is for a picture of Bruce’s feet in very expensive shoes, propped up on what looks like a very expensive table surrounded by a bunch of people in very expensive suits. Clark may have grown up in ridiculous wealth—even more so, perhaps, than Bruce—but Krypton’s wealth is very different from Earth’s and he’s never been rich here. Besides, it isn’t like he ever felt like he belonged in El’s palace either. He certainly would never have dared to flaunt his disdain for it the way Bruce seems to be doing now, at any rate.

_‘Playing stupid in a meeting,’_ Bruce writes a few seconds later, the ‘currently writing’ dots hovering for a long time before he adds: _‘Intensely boring work.’_

There’s another break while Clark tries to figure out how to respond to that, and then, to his utter bafflement, Bruce sends:

_‘I’m not good with people.’_

Clark stares down at his tablet, blinking just to make sure he hasn’t misread the message—it is, after all, not related to anything they’ve been saying so far, and hardly news besides. Bruce Wayne might be excellent at wrapping people around his little finger—as evidenced by the general tone of fond dismissal most tabloids seem to adopt when they discuss him—but neither Batman nor Bruce has ever struck Clark as particularly skilled in the art of interpersonal relationships. Or, well. Sincere interpersonal relationships. To point that out would be rude, though, and potentially misconstrued, and so Clark sighs in relief when the next message comes:

_‘I was harsher than I should have been.’_

Another pause.

_‘During the meeting.’_

Oh, Clark thinks. That meeting.

_‘You apologized for that already.’_

_‘No,’_ Bruce sends.

Then, after a pause:

_‘I didn’t.’_

Another blank.

_‘I let you know you were right about’_

_‘about him’_

_‘but I didn’t say I was sorry’_

_‘so’_

_‘here it is’_

_‘it wasn’t fair of me’_

_‘to make it sound like you were bad at your job when i’_

The suspension marks continue to hover at the top of the screen for a while, and then they vanish, leaving Bruce’s sentence unfinished and the air brimming with a certain sense of...finality, somehow. Or maybe a sense of opportunity. Like Bruce isn’t going to say anything further—he probably isn’t, Rao, this must have been like pulling teeth for him—but it’s up to Clark to decide whether he’s going to let it drop or not. Whether he’s going to make something of it or not.

And he’s nowhere close to knowing what he’d _want_ to make of it, but he does know he is very much not okay with the conversation stopping here—wants to keep Bruce talking as long as he can, just to feel that sense of connection between them, the faint, pleasing tingle of knowing Bruce is thinking of him.

_‘It’s all right,’_ he says, after spending enough time deliberating he’s half afraid Bruce will be done with his meeting and too busy to answer. _‘I figured as much.’_

Rao, how grateful can you be for the possibility of picking your words with care? (Quite a lot, as it turns out.)

It takes him a long time to find enough courage to add:

_‘I care about you, too.’_

Bruce doesn’t reply to Clark’s last message. It was, Clark reminds himself, always a possibility. A very predictable one, at that, and so he decides not to mind at all. He reads books instead—runs to and from Kansas City multiple times just so he can go through all their books on journalism and law and, when there’s really nothing left for it, politics. He hasn’t been able to let the idea of journalism go ever since John suggested it; and maybe he’ll regret it later, but for the moment it feels right, and he’s determined to follow his gut wherever it’ll lead him. It’ll do him good to let himself be led towards something as opposed to away from things, for a change.

The whole business takes about a week, and even then only because he’s alternating between that, Project Watchtower, and the related email chain where Barry piles food suggestions on him, Victor keeps making subtle references to things he claims to be too cool for, and Arthur routinely shoots down every single one of Diana’s suggestions to create a group chat.

That bit is, obviously, not really work, but it does lead to several lunches and outings, and it’s still good for Clark’s horizons to expand. It makes Martha chuckle when he tells her, just a touch of sadness in the sound. Having seven whole friends is a new thing, though, new enough he feels compelled to swear on Rao he’s not inventing them when he writes to Kara. He is damn well going to enjoy it as much as he can.

He’s sitting at a library table and trying to figure out how college application forms work—he hasn’t really discussed it with John, but he’s starting to figure Earth out well enough to realize he won’t be able to just fake a degree, especially when the programs he’d be most interested in, as a student, don’t come with online courses.And then his phone rings and nearly makes him jump through the roof. Grabbing at the table to prevent it from clanking back down and alerting the entire library, Clark manages to stop himself before the top of his head climbs past the tops of the bookshelves and, feeling redder than his cape, answers the phone.

“Bruce,” he manages, just a little more breathless than he’d like. “Hi. What can I do for you?”

“Are you free?” Bruce asks in strangled, almost brittle English.

Clark frowns, spine straightening without even thinking about it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Bruce says, with the sort of haste that says something is definitely wrong. “I’m just—”

“Bruce, where are you?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Kent,” Bruce retorts, but there’s that brittleness in his voice again, and Clark almost forgets to exit the library like a normal person.

Flying to Gotham barely takes him more than a few minutes nowadays. Fifteen, tops, when he lets it—and he’s definitely not going to let it right now, so he’s fairly sure he’s the reason Bruce is running his fingers through his hair and muttering ‘shit shit shit shit shit shit shit’ to himself when he lands on the deck next to the lake house. It’s a bit of a surreal sight, in that Clark has definitely never seen any of Bruce’s personae this messy, not ever—and also in that the second Bruce realizes he’s not alone he physically stops in his tracks and cycles through at least three different colors before settling for a blank face with a very, very bright red overlay.

“What is it?” Clark asks in Superman’s voice, just in case the house is somehow compromised. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Bruce hisses through his teeth, taking three steps toward Clark before he doubles back, grabs a package off a glass table, and brandishes it like a shield. “Your papers came through—John had to leave for some kind of emergency with the Lanterns, so he left them with me.”

Clark, mouth opening on a quiet gasp, drops out of Superman’s posture and costume all at once—sinks down into the Kal-esque slouch he’s decided on for Clark Kent’s public persona instead, and proceeds to open the thick envelope with even more reverence than he’d anticipated. He takes them all out, one by one—driver's license, ID card, passport...and a birth certificate in appropriately faded paper. He brings it up to eye level with trembling fingers, the world dissolving into a blur when he sees Smallville listed as his birthplace, Jonathan and Martha Kent as his parents.

Wiping at his face doesn’t do anything to slow the tears, or the sobs that turn into chuckles—or maybe the other way around. After a moment Bruce must take pity on him because his hand settles on Clark’s shoulder, thumb squeezing in the dip above Clark’s clavicle as he clears his throat and, in a shaking voice, says, “See, nothing wrong.”

Clark manages a strangled noise that might have become a word with some practice, shaking his head for emphasis even as he tries to stop the helpless giggling that's taken him over. Bruce’s hand is warm on his shoulder, solid where Clark feels suddenly fragile, and he leans into it just a little harder than is entirely appropriate, glad that it’s Bruce here with him to receive the news.

“I’m sorry,” Clark manages at long last, “it’s just—you sounded so nervous….”

“I don’t sound nervous,” Bruce retorts, but there’s no heat in the words.

And even if there were: the Earth’s sun has given Clark an eidetic memory. He’d know Bruce was lying anyway. As it is, all he does is snort and wish he had some kind of handkerchief as he sniffles and wipes the last tears from his eyes, and then sighs like he’s been dragging a small moon behind him for years and has finally been allowed to set it down.

“Thank you,” he tells Bruce in Ellon, making sure to use the most respectful and affectionate forms he can think of. “For everything you’ve done...and for being here.”

“It was my pleasure and my honor,” Bruce replies, surprising Clark with his truly commendable use of an Ellon form he has to have learned after their return to Earth. “Actually...I was wondering if, perhaps, you would like for us to celebrate this together.”

For a moment—just the one, earth-shattering moment—Clark’s heart turns loud enough to drown the universe in its rhythm. The Earth, the Milky Way, Krypton itself all cease to exist, swallowed into a heartbeat like glorious bells, a warmth like the sun filling Clark’s veins and squeezing at his guts and his heart and every inch of him in between as he digests the way Bruce spoke the words—shy, almost reverential in tone as much as in form. This is—this would be how an Ellon would offer...lifelong commitments. The kind of arrangement of the heart that can’t, won’t be broken by anything except, perhaps, those who entered it. Clark feels his face grow redder and redder with it, his armpits and neck prickling with the emotion until even his sun-altered body is sweating.

“Bruce,” he manages, feeble and almost too low to be heard, “I don’t think you—”

Bruce makes a face like he’s about to jump from a roof to another one too far away, knowing the gap is too wide and there’s no way he’ll make it, but unable to allow himself to back down anyway. It’s remarkably close to the face Clark imagines he pulled the first time he jumped down from the Citadel’s dome, the first time he flew his own h’mori as a child. The same face he might be wearing, right now, as he allows himself to trust Bruce’s dedication—to believe the man really, truly knows what he is saying.

Bruce, after all, wouldn’t have become Batman—let alone survived this long in the uniform—if he’d been the kind of man content to be anything less than excellent at anything he decided to learn.

“I would love to celebrate with you,” Clark tells Bruce, offering just as much of himself as Bruce offered him.

The feeling is heady, terrifying and intoxicating, not unlike flying: the mad rush of a fall with the absolute certitude he will be caught at the bottom, and land, safe and unscathed, in a place where there will never be any doubt of his welcome. Or, well. Not enough to make him leave, at any rate.

He watches the realization bloom on Bruce’s face, far redder than any shade Bruce Wayne has ever sported, and all the lovelier for it.

“Well,” Bruce says, clearing his throat hard enough Clark can’t help but wince in remembered sympathy, “what do you say to ice cream?”

He’s switched back to English, but it doesn’t do anything to dispel the joyful, brimming tension between them, and Clark reaches for just a little bit of Superman’s strength and bravery. Just enough of it to take the second plunge—always the scariest, in his opinion, because by then you’ve had time to realize exactly what you’re risking—and says:

“Before that, though...can I—”

“I’m not a blushing princess, Kent,” Bruce cuts off, the attempt at irritation just enough to pull Clark from his stupor. “You don’t have to court me or anything.”

“Fine,” Clark sighs, glad for the way Bruce’s grumbling makes some of the nerves go away. “In that case...I’d like to kiss you, if that’s all right with you.”

Bruce’s features all but scream ‘duh’, and Clark snorts, giddy with it, before bending down to kiss Bruce's lips and forget, just for a while, that fear even exists at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and reviews make me want to keep writing ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] Clark Kent, of Krypton](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798057) by [starship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starship/pseuds/starship)




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